From South Africa to Italy: setting up a simultaneous spoken language educational interpreting service at the University of Bologna

Drawing inspiration from the long experience and the fruitful collaboration with the Language Center at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, in March 2020 the Department of Interpreting and Translation of the University of Bologna started a pilot project called “Educational Interpreting and Multilingualism: Simultaneous interpretation during university lessons”. The project was aimed at providing an Italian-English simultaneous interpretation service during lectures across the University of Bologna. This paper describes the outcomes of the first two years of the project provided by a team of professional interpreters/tutors specifically trained in Conference and Liaison Interpreting. The first part of this paper looks into the genesis of the project and the experience of Stellenbosch University which served as a basis for the initial stage of the Educational Interpreting Project launched by the Department of Interpreting and Translation of the University of Bologna. The second part describes the organization of the simultaneous interpreting service in an academic setting and the transition from physical attendance to remote teaching and remote simultaneous interpreting. This part also includes the full list of the courses involved in the project. Finally, the last part sums up the experience acquired by the Department and the interpreting staff over the academic years 2019/2020, 2020/2021 and 2021/2022.