UNESCO Chairs are being established under the UNITWIN (University Twinning and Networking Programme) to promote research and development of education. There are 4 UNESCO Chairs in Slovakia:
UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Development and Ecological Awareness, Technical University in Zvolen
The Chair offers education in cross-sectional and influential subjects from the area of ecologization of the social development, the implementation of principles of sustainable development, environmental management, environmental legislation, ecological optimalization of the spatial organization of landscape, regional development, integrated management of river-basins and landscapes etc.
Contact:
UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Development and Ecological Awareness, Technical University in Zvolen
T.G. Masaryka 24
960 53 Zvolen
Slovak republic
Tel. 00421 - 45 - 520 61 11
Fax: 00421 - 45 - 533 00 27
E-mail: [email protected]
assoc. prof. Ing. Martina Slámová, PhD.
Head of Department
Tel.: +421 455 206 818
email: [email protected]
The Chair was established as a follow-up to the UNESCO Chair for Translation, founded in 1998. Social development has changed the aims and operation of the new UNESCO Chair, which was officially created by signing a renewed agreement between the University and UNESCO in 2016.
Since 2013, the main research priority is the creation of very large corpora (“TenTen” class) using WaC technology (“Web as Corpus”) consisting of texts downloaded from the Internet using automated procedures and processed by open-source tools (FLOSS). Corpora have 'language neutral' (Latin) names (the word araneum pl. Aranea in Latin means 'web') indicating the language and size of the corpus. Aranea's 'family' corpora currently covers 23 languages, and for some languages, there are corpora of regional varieties of the language. Language corpora are available in two or three sizes (minus, maius, maximum).
Access to language corpora is free of charge. Within the Comenius University and other Slovak universities, it contributes mainly to the development of translation techniques using new technologies. Given the UNESCO's priorities, the Chair is also involved in the creation of language versions of African French and English.
The fact that ARANEA corpora are used by students, PhD students, educators and researchers from many countries confirms that the work of the Chair has a significant "social impact" and is meaningful.
The UNESCO Chair also published a unique university textbook: Benko V. - Butašová A. - Puchovská Z. (2019): Web corpora of Aranea: Textbook for foreign language teachers, translators, interpreters, philologists and students of philological fields. Bratislava: Comenius University in Bratislava, ISBN 978-80-223-4663-4, 180 p.
In addition to its research activities, the Chair also carries out pedagogical activities – a wide range of subjects is taught on both bachelor's and master's levels.
Contact:
UNESCO Chair in Plurilingual and Multicultural Communication
Comenius
University
Šafárikovo nám. 6
818 06 Bratislava 1
Information about the activities of this UNESCO Chair may be found on http://unesco.uniba.sk/
