Six students following a BA course in Linguistics at the University of Malta attended the UPSKILLS Project Summer School held between the 15 and 20 of July at the Petnica Science Centre in Serbia. Doctoral students Michela Vella from the Institute of Linguistics & Language Technology and Kurt Abela and Andrew Emanuel Attard from the Department of Artificial Intelligence accompanied the students and participated as trainers in the summer school. The summer school brought together a total of 32 students and 17 trainers enrolled at consortium partner institutions of this Erasmus+ project, of which Prof. Stavros Assimakopoulos, from the University of Malta, is project leader. 

Students and trainers from the University of Belgrade, University of Bologna, University of Geneva, University of Graz, University of Malta, University of Rijeka and CLARIN ERIC came together for this hands-on, research-oriented, 5-day program which was the culmination of the UPSKILLS Project, now nearing its end. Through lectures, workshops and practical tasks, the students learnt about the skills required by the job market – both in academic positions and in companies that make language their main business. This summer school perfectly captured the ethos of the UPSKILLS Project, an Erasmus+ strategic partnership for higher education aimed at identifying and tackling the gaps in digital and research skills for linguistics and language students through the development of a new curriculum component and supporting materials to be embedded in existing programmes of study.

This was a perfect opportunity for BA students following a course in Linguistics to network with other linguistics and language students and researchers and to learn more about the prospects following the completion of their degree, whilst also deepening their linguistic knowledge and transversal skills.