Competences of translation project managers from the academic perspective: analysis of EMT programmes

ABSTRACT

Project management has been established as a way to organise work in the translation industry. Although research on translator competences has become a cornerstone of Translation Studies, scant attention has been paid to the competences of translation project managers (PMs). The aim of this paper is to present the results obtained from a curricular analysis, in order to provide a definition of competences in translation project management based on the academic perspective of the current members of the European Master’s in Translation (EMT) network. This research is preceded by four studies that the author has conducted on this topic. Her purpose is to gather the perspectives of the different stakeholders who should be participating in the definition of competences, i.e. the professional sector and the academic disciplines involved (namely translation and project management). This paper offers an insight into the academic perspective by analysing EMT courses announced for the academic year 2020–2021 in which project management is taught. The results obtained from the curricular analysis presented here will be integrated into the insights gained from the author’s previous research, in order to obtain a more complete picture of translation project managers’ competences.

KEYWORDS:

• Competences
• translation project managers
• European Master’s in Translation
• academic training perspective
• curricular analysis

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all of the programme coordinators of the EMT network and the collaborators who helped me to find the information needed for this research.

Work on this paper was partly carried out at the Centre for Translation Studies at the University of Vienna, thanks to the financial support offered by the University of Málaga.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The literature included in this study uses the terms ‘units’ or ‘elements’ (PMI 2007, 3) or ‘skills’ and ‘knowledge’ (EMT Board 2017, 3). As this is a provisional model and is still to be validated, the author opted for the general term ‘components’ to avoid confusion with the denominations provided by these institutions.

2. Following the terminology of the European Qualifications Framework (European Commission, 2008) applied in this competence framework.