About us - Grupo FITISPos

FITISPos belongs to the high performance investigation groups of the University of Alcalá. This is a prestigious acknowledgment towards its scientific production and its participation in notorious investigation projects.

The origins of the group go back to the 2000s. Thanks to its strong track record, the group has become a national and international reference in the field of Public Service Interpreting and Translation (PSIT). This field involves activities regarding translation and interpreting in delicate contexts and situations such as medical appointments, administrative procedures, social services, educational settings, trials, interviews to apply for asylum and others. From the beginning, and following a multidisciplinary approach, FITISPos has focused on the research of multicultural and multilingual matters such as the different contexts in which multicultural institutional communication with migrant population takes place.

The three fundamental pillars of FITISPos are research, training and praxis. The group offers research focused on analysing the quality of communication in public services and on studying and contributing to the development and design of multicultural societies. The group is committed to train professionals in different contexts within public services such as hospitals, police stations or court, amongst others. The Master’s Degree in Intercultural Communication, Interpreting and Translation in Public Services is an example of this. This master’s degree belongs to the prestigious network of European Master’s in Translation (EMT). Lastly, and as a result of the research and the training, the group counts with an internship programme in different types of facilities (institutions and public organisations, embassies, translation companies, hospitals and health centres, NGOs, associations, etc.)

Even though it is a field that lacks resources and professional recognition, it is important to highlight the great social impact of the group, since it focuses on training people who act as linguistic and cultural agents (interpreters, translators or mediators) in different types of public services. As such, they enable communication with foreign population even in risky or problematic situations.

The group has carried out and participated in high impact projects. Some of these projects have strived to create, on one hand, interpreting services in health centres (INTERMED project) and, on the other hand, training programmes for inmates in prison facilities (project “Comunicación eficiente en centros penitenciarios”) or free MOOC courses for different interested parties.

LINES OF RESEARCH

LÍNEAS DE INVESTIGACIÓN

Since the creation of the group, FITISPos has started new research lines that focus on analysing the quality of communication between migrant population and professionals of the public services inside and outside our borders. The evolution of the group’s research has always been linked to the development and the consolidation of PSIT, and taking into account the multiculturalism and multilingualism of the diverse societies that are involved. It is for that reason that the group has made an effort to draw the attention towards the urgent need for training professionals in translation and interpreting in a specific and specialised way. This is so that they are able to act as translators, interpreters and intercultural and interlinguistic mediators in different contexts and so that they can fill that void present today in public services.

The group also underlines the need for authorities and public institutions to raise awareness of the communicative needs of both the foreign population and the institutional staff that assist them, and to take action to implement or count with high quality services of translation and interpreting. Thus, it will be possible to avoid the severe consequences that medical appointments, trials or interviews for asylum may have if there’s not a professional interpreter intervening.