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With apologies for cross-posting In an article published in today's Times Higher Education, Professor Catherine Davies (the new Director of the IMLR) outlined the importance of stronger international links and public engagement as keys to combatting the continuing crisis in modern languages. She said she was 'very angry' about the decline of modern languages within higher education, and the lack of 'succession planning' to maintain the research base. 'It's not just a natural phenomenon,' she explained. 'It's to do with political decisions, with Vice-Chancellors' decisions. Languages are not compulsory in schools, so most of the people doing languages come from the private sector - that's cutting off the vast majority of our population.' In Professor Davies' view, it is part of the IMLR's mission 'to try and reverse the decline. We've seen it done in Classics as well as in the sciences. There is good evidence that arts students don't really cost universities £9,000 a year [to teach], but the surplus always seems to go elsewhere.' and she called on Vice-Chancellors to introduce policies similar to the one adopted by University College London, which requires students to take a language half-course during their first year if they do not already have a C-grade GCSE in a foreign language. Equally crucial is public engagement. Professor Davies was principal investigator on the first research project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to look at gender and women's participation in the Latin American independence wars of the early 19th century. This led to contacts with the Latin American Women's Rights Service and, since many of the people involved didn't know about the role of women in the independence period, to both a girls' drama project and a photographic exhibition. There was also an exhibition in City Hall earlier this year about the London Latin American community. Read the full article at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/alliances-overseas-can-secure-future-for-languages/2015398.article Jane Lewin Institute Administrator/Consortium Publications Manager Institute of Modern Languages Research (formerly IGRS) University of London School of Advanced Study Room ST 279, Senate House Malet Street, GB- London WC1E 7HU Telephone 0044 (0)20 7862 8966 Website http://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk Please note that there is no longer a through-route from Stewart House to Senate House The Institute is part of the IMLR/IMR/IP Administrative Consortium