Methodological Excellence in Data-Driven Approaches to Linguistics

2026-07-22

The MEDAL consortium project has the ambition to reduce the recognised gap in access to expertise, training and research funding in Linguistics across Europe through a horizontal, network approach to engaging a new generation of researchers in empirically grounded, up-to-the-minute methodology. The consortium, comprising four highly acclaimed research organisations (Widening country member and coordinator, the University of Tartu, Estonia; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen & Donders Institute at Radboud University, both in the Netherlands; University of Birmingham, UK) who will jointly lead a concerted move to increase the global competitiveness of Linguistics in Europe by bringing together world-class pioneers and early-career researchers, developing excellence in methodological training, and formulating a model of international collaboration on cross-linguistic, cross-modal, cross-disciplinary research. The project focusses on three clusters of empirically grounded methods which inform state-of-the-art language research: corpus studies, experimental methods, and computational modelling. The consortium will launch a multi-pronged effort to build better methodological expertise and awareness among the next generation of researchers, offer high-level training schools in the methods included in the project, and engage in the project’s collaborative Gold MEDAL Research project, in which early career researchers gain first-hand experience in conceptualising and designing a multi-method research programme, implementing it across a range of languages and modalities, and disseminating the results, leading to increased visibility for all partners. By 2025, the MEDAL consortium will have developed internal expertise, established a sustainable joint training and research programme and be poised for further collaboration, and the University of Tartu will be an internationally recognised Linguistics research excellence hub for Northern Europe.

Estonia, Germany, Netherlands

2025-12-15