Two researchers from 'Public discourse' of ICS carry out short stays in Hungary and Germany with Erasmus+ scholarships

Sarali Gintsburg and Pilar Gerns, researchers of the group 'Public discourse' of the Institute for Culture and Society of the University of Navarra, have made short stays in academic centers in Hungary and Germany during the academic year 2021-2022 thanks to Erasmus + grants, awarded by the European Commission. 

Sarali Gintsburg spent March 21-25, 2022 at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Budapest (Hungary). As he explains, his goal was to strengthen the academic network of group in Central Europe: "He is the first Hungarian research center with whom we are going to collaborate."

On his visit he was with researchers Judit Nagy, professor of Philology English and vice dean for international affairs; Ildikó Schmidt, senior lecturer in Hungarian Linguistics and an expert in multilingualism; and Imre János, Full Professor Hungarian Linguistics and also a specialist in multilingualism. "I was previously acquainted with Ildikó Schmidt, who has written a chapter in a book we have just edited," he says.

As a result of the short stay, the group 'Public discourse' plans to receive Hungarian researchers, exchange experiences on the work field with ethnic minorities and participate in future joint projects. "We will also invite our Hungarian colleagues to participate in a collective work that we want to publish in 2023," he says.  

Pilar Gerns was at the University of Hamburg (Germany) from May 7 to 23. She was invited by Professor Sílvia Melo-PfeiferSílvia Melo-Pfeifer, professor at School of Education of the academic center and expert in foreign language teaching, multilingualism, intercultural learning and source languages. 

Professor Melo-Pfeifer currently coordinates several projects for research. Among them is CoMMiTTEd (Covid, Migrants and Minorities in Teacher Education: A Fake News Observatory to promote Critical Thinking and Digital Literacy in Times of Crisis), of which 'Public discourse' is a part.

During her stay, Pilar Gerns gave a seminar graduate 'Linguistic diversity in Spain to her students at Degree of Romanistics'. She also participated in the workshop 'Hands-on-approach -Linguistic Landscapes in the classroom of the Romanic Languages', which took place from May 12-14 at the Friedrich-Schiller-University. 

"It was a very enriching and complete experience, in which I was able to learn first-hand about different methodologies related to the multilingual teaching that is being implemented in northern Europe," he says. Likewise, the stay has opened the door to strengthening the relationship that the University of Navarra has with the University of Hamburg, establishing the possibility of future exchanges between students or the partnership between groups of research.