History

In March 2003, the Government of Canada released the Action Plan for Official Languages, which announced the intention to create the Language Technologies Research Centre (LTRC). By doing so, the government's goal was to support Canadian research in the language industry and the development of new solutions in language technology.

The LTRC was formed through a partnership between the National Research Council (NRC), the Translation Bureau, and the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO). With approximately 25 members at present, the Centre will eventually include 150 researchers and experts.

In May 2004, the federal government, the Quebec provincial government, and UQO announced a joint funding project worth $15.2 million to construct a building on the UQO campus in Gatineau, part of Canada's national capital region. In addition to housing all of the LTRC researchers under one roof, the new building will include research laboratories and the technological equipment necessary for carrying out research projects. Construction is expected to begin in early 2005 and be completed by early 2006.

Mission

To carry out and promote research, development and technology transfer activities in language technologies, as part of the collaborative efforts between academia, government, associations and industry, in order to contribute to the advancement of knowledge, and to benefit the Canadian language industry.

Vision

To become:

•  the world leader in the research and development of language technologies

 

•  a national technology centre enabling Canadian companies to increase their competitiveness and become leaders on the international scene

 

•  a unique environment for the training of highly qualified personnel

 

•  a key factor in the development of industrial and technology clusters in the field of language technologies in Canada

Strategic directions

Develop tools for productivity improvement in the following areas:

•  translation
•  the creation of multilingual and multicultural content
•  language training

Develop content management and semantic search tools for the processing of multiple languages.

Become the world leader on standards in terminology, quality control, and the implementation of linguistic databases.