The EAIE/ACA Seminar is by now a fixture at the annual conferences of the European Association for International Education (EAIE). This year’s seminar, held in Trondheim on 13 September, was the ninth of its kind. The event, which explored the question ”Will European higher education go English?” was attended by about 70 very engaged participants. 

The seminar was co-chaired by Hans de Wit (EAIE) and Ulf Lie from ACA, who had brand-new research findings from ACA’s Europe-wide survey of English-taught programmes to present.   The results of the survey will be published early in 2008 in the ACA publication series, the ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education.   An impressive range of eminent speakers helped to make the seminar a success. Among them were Peter van der Hijden of the European Commission, Robert Coelen of Leiden University, and Christian Timm of Ulm University.  The presentations sparked off an animated discussion about a host of issues around the theme, from the spread of English in Academia and as a lingua franca to the varieties of programmes and language policies among the European countries and the interaction of English with national languages. It became clear from the discussion that the triumph of English in non-English-speaking countries is no longer considered as the threat it appeared to be a few years ago.  

EAIE conference