Events

 

On June 22–23, 2026, the 16th edition of the workshop titled “CLARIN in Research Practice” took place at Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce. The event was organized by the CLARIN-PL Language Technology Center (based at Wrocław University of Science and Technology) in cooperation with the Institute of Literary Studies and Linguistics at Jan Kochanowski University, as well as CLARIN-PL consortium partners: the Institute of Computer Science PAS, the Institute of Slavic Studies PAS, the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology, the University of Łódź, and the University of Wrocław. The event drew significant interest from the scientific community, with approximately 150 participants from across the country attending the panels and practical sessions.

Researchers from the Institute of Slavic Studies PAS (IS PAN) actively participated in the workshop program, presenting research results conducted in collaboration with partners from other academic centres. The substantive presentations were delivered by researchers affiliated with our Institute and the University of Warsaw, all of which align with broader activities within the CLARIN-PL infrastructure.

Presentations by the IS PAS Semantics and Computational Linguistics Team

One of the main highlights of the program was a series of presentations concerning work with low-resource languages (languages with limited digital representation).

A team consisting of Danuta Roszko (UW), Roman Roszko (IS PAN), and Piotr Szatkowski (IS PAN) presented a methodology for creating datasets for the Masurian reading material. This work is closely linked to the ongoing CLARIN-PL-BIZ-Bis (FENG) project, which is a consortium undertaking. The presentation addressed the technical aspects of building data processing pipelines necessary for preparing Masurian texts for the training, evaluation, and testing of Large Language Models (LLMs).

Another presentation, delivered by a team comprising Danuta Roszko (UW), Roman Roszko (IS PAN), and Valéry TrânThiên (IS PAN), focused on machine translation testing within language groups with limited digital resources (including Slavic and Baltic languages). The speakers placed the issues of contemporary AI models within a broader historical and theoretical context, referencing classic works of translation theory. They noted that even in the age of artificial intelligence, the principles formulated by Étienne Dolet in 1540 in La Manière de Bien Traduire d’une Langue en Aultre remain relevant. His five rules – ranging from a perfect understanding of the author’s intention to avoiding literal “word-for-word” translation – serve as a crucial reference point for assessing the quality of today’s machine-generated translations.

As a striking example of how a translation error can impact the development of science, the team cited the issue raised by Daniel Hoek (2023) in the article Forced Changes Only: A New Take on the Law of Inertia. Linguistic analysis revealed that an imprecise English translation of the Latin lexeme quatenus, performed by Andrew Motte in 1729 in his translation of Newton’s Principia, led to a fundamental misunderstanding of Newton’s First Law of Motion. This seemingly minor linguistic error distorted the interpretation of a scientific principle for nearly three centuries, serving as an extremely important warning for contemporary researchers testing the precision and semantic vigilance of machine translation models.

Expert Consultations

A key element of the IS PAS researchers’ presence at the workshop was the opportunity to provide direct support to participants. Prof. Roman Roszko (IS PAS) conducted individual and group expert consultations, assisting researchers in implementing modern technologies into their daily scientific work. The consultation topics included:

• the use of artificial intelligence in text translation processes,
• the analysis of multilingual manuscripts using AI tools,
• advanced tagging and annotation of linguistic resources.

The participation of our researchers among such a large group of attendees confirms the growing role of the Institute of Slavic Studies PAS in projects that bridge traditional humanities with modern natural language processing (NLP) technologies.

CLARIN-PL Consortium Members: Wrocław University of Science and Technology (leader), Institute of Computer Sciences PAS, Institute of Slavic Studies PAS, Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology, University of Łódź, University of Wrocław.

We invite you to the 59th Migration Seminar of the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw, organized in cooperation with the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The seminar will take place on March 17, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw (Warsaw, Żurawia 4).

The guest speaker will be Prof. Jasna Čapo (The Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb), who will deliver a lecture entitled: “Transformative Effects of Intra-European Mobility for the Young Croatian Returnees: Intangible Capital, Life Satisfaction and Optimism for the Future.”

The seminar will be held in English.

Description:

The lecture examines recent patterns of migration and return mobility among Croatian citizens, with a particular focus on returnees who lived in the European Union member states following Croatia’s accession to the European Union in 2013. Drawing on qualitative methodology, specifically open-ended semi-structured interviews with return migrants, the study deepens existing understandings of the circumstances and reasons for their mobility, both at the time of departure and upon returning to the country.

With its transformative effects, the recent intra-European mobility acts as a kind of rite of passage or formative mobility on those who experience it. This transformation is evident in the informal human and psychological capital migrants acquired during their stay abroad. Among other, they return with new values, perspectives, and aspirations, expressing satisfaction regarding life in the cities in which they live and optimism for future development of Croatia.

The official opening of the seminar “Contemporary Trends in Education: Ukrainian–Polish Experiences” took place on December 2, 2025. On behalf of the organizers: the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Donbas State Pedagogical University, the University of Szczecin, and the Ukrainian–Polish International Center for Education and Science, the guests, participants, and all those gathered were warmly welcomed by Dr. Habil. Roman Roszko, Prof. IS PAN.

In his welcoming address, Professor Roszko referenced the celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Ukrainian–Polish International Center for Education and Science at DSPU. He emphasized the extraordinary role of the Center in strengthening the Polish–Ukrainian partnership and its invaluable influence on the development of innovative education in Ukraine and Poland. He also announced that this year’s exceptional event would be the “Porta Vitae” Foundation Day, during which Polish Partners would share valuable, practical experience in working with children with special educational needs.

Prof. Roszko introduced the audience to the family of generative language models, PLLuM (Polish Large Language Model). He noted that they are the collaborative work of two consortia of Polish research institutions: PLLuM (in 2024) and HIVE AI (continuation of work in 2025), financed by the Ministry of Digital Affairs of the Republic of Poland. He paid particular attention to the role of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IS PAN) in creating these models. He emphasized that the models were also trained on Ukrainian textual data and organic instructions, which significantly enhanced their capabilities in understanding the Ukrainian language and generating responses in that language.

Towards the end of his speech, Prof. Roman Roszko addressed the fundamental issue for humanities scholars: the ethical and effective use of artificial intelligence tools. The Professor acknowledged the unquestionable capabilities of generative language models and their potential for rapid data processing, but at the same time, he appealed for a critical approach.

Based on his own experiences, Prof. Roszko warned against the degeneration of cognitive competencies and the impoverishment of research methodology in the face of uncontrolled and excessive reliance on AI. He pointed out that the widespread use of these technologies can lead to the gradual loss of skills key to a humanities scholar, including deep analytical and synthesizing thought, the ability to extract data and evaluate source texts, argumentation, creating original associations, and drawing conclusions. Restricting the necessary intellectual effort of a researcher cannot be the source of true knowledge and creative work. Language models merely generate texts that look polished but are, in reality, nothing innovative—just the statistically most probable combination of tokens/words, which are derivatives of input data (textual, instructions, preferences).

Professor Roszko thus stressed the need to develop new standards for the work of a humanities scholar that reconcile the potential inherent in AI with the necessity of preserving fundamental human capacities.

As part of the COST Action PLURILINGMEDIA, Dr Csilla Horváth from the University of Helsinki is visiting the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 7 to 19 September 2025.

On Tuesday, 16 September, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., the seminar “Minority Language Media” will take place in a hybrid format — in the seminar room at the Institute of Slavic Studies PAS (ul. Jaracza 1, 5th floor) and online. The event is organized by Prof. Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska, and will be based on a talk by Dr Csilla Horváth entitled “Mansi Print, Broadcast and Social Media: Hierarchies, Perspectives and Indigenous Journalism”.

Those wishing to participate online can request the event link via the secretariat: sekretariat@ispan.edu.pl.

Description:

The Mansi are an indigenous people of Western Siberia, one of the three recognised minorities and 120 other ethnic groups of their region. Mansi is an endangered minority language without official status or significant economic importance. Mansi is traditionally spoken in the Mansi villages between the Ob River and the Ural Mountains; however, the proportion of urban Mansi has increased to 57% since World War II.

Regular Mansi media has been appearing since the 1990s, while Mansi users started to register to social media sites since the late 2000s. The presentation introduces the ethnolinguistic vitality of the Mansi language and it describes the significance of Mansi media and Mansi media practitioners in the maintenance of Mansi literacy and language planning and in the revitalistaion of the Mansi language.

Biography:

Csilla Horváth, PhD, is a visiting researcher at the University of Helsinki. She is a linguist and anthropologist, specialised in the languages and cultures of the indigenous peoples of Western Siberia. During her linguistic research, she has studied urban language use and the ethnolinguistic vitality of the Ob-Ugric languages, during her anthropological research she has studied the urban ways of expressing ethnic  identity as well as online activity of Mansi and Khanty users. During eight research trips she spent 18 months in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug between 2006 and 2019.