Terminology planning strategy and terminology infrastructure for Mongolia to support scientific and educational development and innovation

Cooperating countries: Mongolia and Austria

Coordinating institution: Vesna Lusicky, Universität Wien

Partner institutions: Namsrai Munkhtsetseg, Mongolian Academy of Sciences; Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 

Project duration: 1 November 2020 - 31 October 2024

Behind Kazakhstan, Mongolia is the world's second-largest landlocked country most sparsely populated with a population of around 3m people. It is sandwiched between Russia to the north and the People’s Republic of China (POC) to the south, where it neighbours the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Despite many unfavourable conditions, Mongolia tries hard to develop in terms of education and industry – and sees the development of terminologies as a key for this development as well as for the preservation of its language and culture.

According to the international standard ISO 29383:2010 “Terminology planning comprises activities aimed at developing, improving, implementing and disseminating the terminology of a subject field”. Thus, scientific-technical terminologies are fundamental and crucial for specialized language development, higher education, innovation and industry. Terminology planning can strongly support communication planning, science and technology planning, innovation strategies and information and digitalisation policies. Therefore, it falls under the UN’s Strategic Development Goals 9 (Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation), 4 (Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all) and 17 (Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development) as well as under UNESCO policies related to WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society). The UN Agenda 2030 and the SDGs call for a social-ecological transformation on a global level. They include a commitment to a global partnership for sustainable development – however, inclusive education, innovation, knowledge transfer, information society, industry and commerce are not possible without well-developed national terminologies and future-oriented terminology infrastructure.

Austria has a time-honored profound experience and in fact pioneering history in most aspects related to “terminology science and its manifold applications”, such as terminology science proper, terminology related to language (e.g. applied linguistics and specialized communication, multilingualism, information and documentation, etc.), terminologies in computer applications (e.g. terminology management systems, language technology, knowledge management, content management, automated and computer-assisted translation, eLearning, etc.), terminology at strategic level (e.g. terminology policies, educational strategies, national terminology infrastructure, etc.), terminology teaching and training (TT&T), terminology standardization in all its facets.

Mongolian institutions are striving to develop terminological approaches, methods, policies and technology most appropriate for strategic as well as practical purposes. In cooperation with the University of Vienna and Austrian Academy of Sciences these efforts will be further analysed and explored, providing expertise in developing relevant infrastructure and strategies, pertinent open systems and the knowhow to adapt them, an array of content resources, domain literature and TT&T activities. The main objective of the project is to assist Mongolian institutions and experts in designing and developing a comprehensive framework for a terminology planning policy with supporting strategies for knowledge transfer,
encompassing a sustainable infrastructure and expertise to implement a terminology infrastructure comprising a (physical or virtual) terminology documentation centre and a national terminology database.

The relevance of the project for SDG and the contribution of the project to the analysis and solutions to the SDGs in Mongolia is as follows:
• There is no specialized knowledge and science without terminology. Overcoming terminological issues is a crucial step in order to develop a knowledge-based society. In other words, the process of developing a knowledge-based society must start from terminologies, the key elements of knowledge.
• In order to provide the coordination and coherence of science, technology and industry, communication within and across disciplines must be unambiguous and stable. Inconsistent, ambiguous terminology can lead to miscommunication both within and across disciplines.
• Terminological resources are also important elements for developing ICT tools, such as browsers, automatic translation systems, cultural heritage information systems, eLearning resources, etc. On the one and they represent high-quality eContent, on the other hand all kinds of other types of eContent can be made available through them.

According to the international standard ISO 29383:2010 “Terminology planning comprises activities aimed at developing, improving, implementing and disseminating the terminology of a subject field”. Thus, scientific-technical terminologies are fundamental and crucial for specialized language development, higher education, innovation and industry. Terminology planning can strongly support communication planning, science and technology planning, innovation strategies and information and digitalisation policies. As information technology systems cannot thrive without content, terminology resources can also be used as ‘seed investment’ for developing information technology systems.

The project “Terminology planning strategy and terminology infrastructure for Mongolia to support scientific and educational development and innovation” aims to contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals with the following prerequisite contributions:
• Development of a terminology policy and planning strategy coherently with scientific, educational and economic development planning and policy.
• laying the basis for a comprehensive terminology infrastructure in Mongolia for developing the language - and in particular specialized languages - in a coordinated and harmonizing way.
• Improvement of the integration of technologies related to terminology and language (text technologies, terminology technology and translation technology).
• Improvement of terminology knowledge and expertise of subject field specialists, terminologists, translators and stakeholders through stakeholder consultation, capacitybuilding, train-the-trainers events, and building knowledge networks. Terminology planning strategy and terminology infrastructure for Mongolia to support scientific and educational development and innovation
• Providing terminology users with sustainable and future-oriented technology to improve terminology documentation and application of terminology in education.
• Improvement of terminology standardization from several interdependent perspectives, and thus also improve standardization in general.

The project “Terminology planning strategy and terminology infrastructure for Mongolia to support scientific and educational development and innovation” aims at primarily contributing to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

SDG 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Targets: The project will contribute in particular to the target SDG 4.4, whereby the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship should be increased. This is a challenge especially in a country like Mongolia, were 35% of the population is living scattered over huge areas.
Project’s contribution: Terminology is the basis for domain-specific, scientific and technological communication. This also applies to being able to communicate subject matter (science, technology, etc.) in the national language in education. Easy, quick and open access to domain-specific terminologies opens the door to specialised knowledge in education, innovation, industry and commerce. The project will analyze the potential of innovative language technologies pertinent to terminology work and recommend strategies for the implementation of these technologies and terminological resources into e-learning and other education scenarios, such as life-long learning, thus also strengthening the digital literacy skills
at several educational levels.

SDG 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Targets: The project’s results will contribute to the target SDG 9.5 , namely enhancing scientific research, upgrade the technological capabilities and SDG 9.7., namely support domestic technology development, research and innovation in developing countries.
Project’s contribution: The project will disseminate terminological principles, standards and best practices among various stakeholders in education, science, commerce, industry and thus ensuring quality of scientific communication as well as facilitating innovation by combining
the efficient creation of quality content with Web technologies. Furthermore, the project will develop recommendations on harmonization of terms at the national and international level and therefore support seamless communication in cross-border research and innovation cooperation, but also across communities using distinct dialects of Mongolian. The project will also develop recommendations for a terminology infrastructure, comprising also language technology. This technology is inherently language-dependant and relies on language-specific writing systems. This means that the adaptation of such an infrastructure for the Mongolian Terminology planning strategy and terminology infrastructure for Mongolia to support scientific and educational development and innovation needs would become part of the backbone of Mongolian research, innovation and domestic technology development.

SDG 17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.
Targets: The project will explicitly address and contribute to the target SDG 17.6., namely regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation and enhance knowledge sharing on mutually agreed terms and through a global technology facilitation mechanism, as well as to the target SDG 17.8., namely the operationalization of capacity-building and enhancing the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communication technology.
Project’s contribution: The project will develop the terminology planning policies and terminology infrastructure strategies to support specialized language as the backbone of the Mongolian knowledge society. It will analyse the needs and formulate recommendations and strategies for implementing a sustainable, extensible, interoperable and future-oriented technological infrastructure for terminology, allowing the integration of semantic technologies, Big Data and Smart Data. The project will contribute to capacity-building in the field of terminology in Mongolia by addressing all stakeholders in the terminology value chain and ensure sustainable knowledge transfer and multiplication of best practices.

As Mongolia’s Sustainable Development Vision 2030 explicitly addresses knowledge society as one of the objectives (Objective 5. Ensure the coordination and coherence of science and industry, and develop a knowledge-based society)1, the planned project aims at contributing to this national objective in line with its contribution to the SDGs.