CIIIC improves bilingualism in communication

At CIIIC, we are helping to build a strong Dutch IX sector with an international presence. Our community reflects that: many IX professionals, researchers, and practitioners in the Netherlands speak English, and of course, the rest of the world does too. To serve everyone well, we are improving our bilingual approach.

The situation so far

This website is already fully bilingual, but the rest of our communication has lagged behind in some areas. The newsletter was only in Dutch, LinkedIn posts mostly as well, and at events, it wasn't always clear in which language information would be available; many events were mixed or Dutch-speaking, albeit with English-subtitled video reports and usually bilingual documentation. So, it's high time for some improvements.

What is changing?

Newsletter – From now on, our newsletter will be published in both Dutch and English. Existing subscribers will automatically receive the Dutch version, as they have been accustomed to a Dutch-language newsletter until now. Prefer the English version? You can adjust your preferences via a link found in the newsletter.

LinkedIn – On LinkedIn, we are switching to English as the primary language. Because posts there are short and our target audience has sufficient English proficiency, publishing bilingually is not practical and English suffices.

Community platform – Our community platform, primarily used for potential call participants and currently in the final phase of a pilot, will be mainly in English. However, the documents we share via the platform will be published bilingually.

Events and presentations – Meetings are primarily in English, but sometimes in Dutch if, for example, only Dutch-speaking attendees are present, in which case we generally provide an English-subtitled video report. Sometimes presentation slides are in Dutch, but then we ensure English slides that you can follow on your phone during a presentation.

Documents and forms – Documents are as bilingual as possible. Forms and documents from the organizations that carry out our calls (see the explanation about the Implementing Organisations on the Organisation page) can be in Dutch, or exclusively or mainly in English. We will provide clarity on this to interested parties in the lead-up phase of new calls.

Help us improve

We are not yet everywhere we want to be. Do you encounter something that is not available in your preferred language? Let us know, for example, via the contact page. Your feedback helps us make CIIIC more accessible to everyone.