Multilingualism in action in a European University Alliance: an exploratory survey of the roles of English and other languages for research purposes

While most European University Alliances position multilingualism as an important value, their policies are limited to few privileged languages and centre on language learning rather than language use. To learn more about actual multilingual practices and needs of researchers, this paper presents a survey involving 109 academics working in one such alliance, Circle U. The findings show that English, albeit quantitatively dominant, is complemented by many other languages used for various, though limited, research activities. While all participants employ their linguistic repertoires for work-related communication, when it comes to developing and disseminating research, scientists in language-focused humanities reported the greatest linguistic diversity. In contrast, STEM researchers tended to revolve more around English, while social scientists found themselves in an intermediate position. Reported research-related language needs included improving existing English skills, especially for academic publishing and revealed discipline-specific language ideologies. Overall, the study underlines that English holds an unassailable dominant position for many academic functions. Other languages, while frequently invisible beyond language centres, are meaningful resources for research across disciplines. On a policy level, as exemplified in the Circle U. Language Compass, multilingual research realities across the institution ought to be acknowledged in language policies of alliances.