03/07/2023

Our Head of Quality Management, Eva-Maria Tillmann, member and co-project leader of the DIN subcommittee for translation services, attended the meeting of ISO Technical Committee 37, Language and Terminology, in Brussels. Here is her status and travel report.

Having been restricted to solely online gatherings since 2020, it was now time to meet in person once again. The annual meeting of the ISO Technical Committee (TC) 37 Language and Terminology took place in a very special setting in the buildings of the European Parliament in Brussels. TC 37 is responsible for all ISO standards in the fields of terminology, translation, interpreting and technical communication. It also deals with all other language-related issues, including simple language and translation-oriented writing. There are no less than 82 published standards in this area, with a further 29 currently being prepared.

Official group photo of ISO TC 37 (Source: ISO)

Since 2019 oneword has delegated Eva-Maria Tillmann, Head of Quality Management, to attend the DIN Subcommittee for Translation Services. As the German mirror committee, it is also active internationally, working on standards such as ISO DIN EN 17100 (translation services), ISO DIN 18587 (post-editing of machine translation) and the soon-to-be-published ISO DIS 11669 (translation projects) and ISO DIS 5060 (evaluation of translations). Since 2022, Eva-Maria Tillmann has also been co-project leader of the draft standard ISO AWI 18968 – Translation-oriented writing, an international standards project submitted by DIN based on the German standard DIN 8579 – Translation-oriented writing.

This year the European Parliament issued invitations to the event in Brussels as one of the liaison members of TC 37. For Eva-Maria Tillmann, it was the first in-person event, where she was able to participate in many meetings and make new contacts, as well as finally meet many of the experts from all over the world whom she already knew from online meetings. Her conclusion: “It was wonderful, it’s a different experience altogether to share and talk over a coffee or a meal. I’m sure it will also make our digital collaboration more effective and productive! And working on standards in the meeting rooms and halls of the European Parliament, surrounded by interpreting booths, you keep wondering what has already been discussed here and decided for the whole of Europe. It was a really great experience!”

Important progress was made on some projects, such as translation-oriented writing and the revision of ISO 18587 for the post-editing of machine translation. Eva-Maria Tillmann is looking forward to the work ahead and oneword is proud to be actively involved as a DIN member in the process of standardisation, which is relevant for so many other service providers and customers.