Discover our language & intercultural lab in action
The CU.mil aims to foster multilingualism and interculturality across Circle U. It offers formal and informal learning opportunities in the fields of multilingualism, interculturality and language learning. The CU.mil aims to drive the research in these fields forward, to develop multilingual and intercultural competences, and to enhance knowledge in these areas for all students and staff at Circle U. universities.
Language Policy Compass
This compass, developed by the CU.mil team, aims to foster multilingualism and interculturality across our European University Alliance. Rather than prescribing rigid rules, we offer a dynamic framework - conceptualised as a compass - designed to help and inspire members of our universities in their plurilingual development.
Note: our developers are still working on an interactive version of this compass. Worry not, it will be accessible here very soon!
Latest on the CU.mil
Events
Language Teachers' Nexus: Building Communities of Practice
Fostering Autonomy in Language Education: Focus on Teaching Practices
Recurring offers
Meet the team of the Multilingualism, Interculturality and Language Lab.
Academic Director
Prof. Fanny Meunier
- Academic Directorr for the CU.mil
- UCLouvain
Prof. Fanny Meunier
- Academic Directorr for the CU.mil
- UCLouvain
Fanny Meunier is Professor of English language, linguistics, and teacher education at UCLouvain. Her research interests and publications cover fundamental, applied, and instructed Second Language Acquisition. She is also actively involved in pre- and in-service teacher education where she promotes teacher-researcher collaboration. She has been involved in numerous international research projects. Her most recent projects deal with multi- and plurilingualism in the digital era; she is for instance actively involved in the ‘Language in the Human Machine Era’ project. She is the Academic Director of Circle U’s Multilingualism, Interculturality and Language Lab (CU.mil).
Profile page and contact details
Professor of English language, linguistics, and teacher education
Faculty of Philosophy, Arts and Letters
UCLouvain
Academic chairs
Prof. Pia Lane
- Academic Chair
- University of Oslo
Prof. Pia Lane
- Academic Chair
- University of Oslo
Pia Lane has investigated multilingualism from a wide range of theoretical perspectives, and her current project explores emotional aspects of language reclamation in Kven and Sámi communities in Northern Norway, combining narrative analysis and nexus analysis in order to analyse the experiences of new speakers of Indigenous languages. She is PI of the project Indigenous Language Resilience: From Learners To Speakers and coordinates the MA-programme in Multilingualism at the University of Oslo. She is a member of the Committee of Experts for the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and has served on the Norwegian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Profile page and contact details
Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies
Faculty of Humanities
University of Oslo
Dr Ana Maria Sousa Aguiar de Medeiros
- Academic Chair
- King's College London
Dr Ana Maria Sousa Aguiar de Medeiros
- Academic Chair
- King's College London
Ana is Director of the Language Centre at King’s College London. She is a member of the Language Acts and Worldmaking Centre and co-editor of the Language Acts Book Series.
Recently, Ana has also published on the works of Marie Nimier and Amélie Nothomb and is interested in the intersection between language and identity, identity and gender. Previously Ana also wrote on the narratives of Assia Djebar and Marguerite Yourcenar.
From October 2024 Ana has been elected as the Chair of the Association of University Language Communities (AULC).
Profile page and contact details
Director of the King's Language Centre
King's College London
Assoc. Prof. Karine Paris
- Academic Chair
- Université Paris Cité
Assoc. Prof. Karine Paris
- Academic Chair
- Université Paris Cité
She's an English associate professor at the School for Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies at Université Paris Cité. She has extensive experience in teaching general English and English for specific purposes. She coordinates English courses for Master’s degree courses in communication, journalism and sustainable development.
She also works at the Language Resource Center where she designs online English courses for humanities and science students and coordinates a team of instructors. Recently she has taken part in the language working group in charge of making recommendations on the future organization of language courses and language teachers’ training at UPC to better meet students’, staff’s and faculty’s needs.
Profile page and contact details
karine.paris@u-paris.fr
School of Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies and Language Resource Center
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
Université Paris Cité
Prof. Dr. Ute Smit
- Academic Chair
- University of Vienna
Prof. Dr. Ute Smit
- Academic Chair
- University of Vienna
Being an applied linguist in an English department, my research focuses mainly on English in, and around, education at the crossroads of classroom discourse, language policy, internationalisation, English as a lingua franca, disciplinary biliteracy and multilingualism. I’ve been involved in various international projects, and I’m presently the chair of the ICLHE (Integrating content and Language in Education) Association and the vice head of the international research platform #YouthMediaLife.
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Professor of English Linguistics
Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies
University of Vienna
Prof. Dr. Dalibor Sokolović
- Academic Chair
- Dalibor Sokolović University of Belgrade
Prof. Dr. Dalibor Sokolović
- Academic Chair
- Dalibor Sokolović University of Belgrade
Dalibor Sokolović is Associate Professor at the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Philology, and Erasmus+ coordinator at the same faculty. His scientific interests include West Slavic languages, Slavic minority languages, language policies and planning, methodology and practice of foreign language teaching.
Profile page and contact details
Faculty of Philology
University of Belgrade
Prof. Dr. Ferran Suñer
- Academic Chair
- UCLouvain
Prof. Dr. Ferran Suñer
- Academic Chair
- UCLouvain
Ferran Suñer is professor of German language, linguistics and teacher education at UCLouvain. His research interests cover technology-based language learning, applied cognitive linguistics, and the use of figurative language across languages and cultures. His recent projects involve collaboration among different stakeholders in the realms of research and education, focusing on initiatives such as Teaching and learning languages online using digital tasks and Learning scenarios to support inclusive language and culture education for heterogeneous school classes. He is a co-founder of the research group Teaching and Acquiring Multilingualism and Multiliteracies (TeAMM).
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Institute for Language and Communication/Linguistics Research Unit
Faculty of Philosophy, Arts and Letters
UCLouvain
Prof. Heike Wiese
- Academic Chair
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Prof. Heike Wiese
- Academic Chair
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Heike Wiese holds the chair of German in Multilingual Contexts at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, after a professorship at University of Potsdam and visiting posts at Yale University and Brandeis University. Wiese is a member of the Academia Europaea and of the German Council for Migration, as well as a speaker of the Centre “Language in Urban Diversity”. She is an expert on the dynamics of multilingual settings, with foci on grammatical developments and on monolingual ideologies, linguistic discrimination and empowerment. In outreach activities, Wiese cooperates with multilingual communities, kindergartens and schools, educational policy makers and museums.
Profile page and contact details
Faculty of Language, Literature and Humanities
heike.wiese@hu-berlin.de
Prof. Michelangelo Zaccarello
- Academic Chair
- University of Pisa
Prof. Michelangelo Zaccarello
- Academic Chair
- University of Pisa
After teaching in Dublin, Oxford and Verona, Michelangelo Zaccarello is professor of Filologia italiana at the University of Pisa and held 2 Fulbright terms at Indiana U. and Northwestern (IL): his main research areas are the textual scholarship of early Italian literary texts, mainly comic verse and short stories (with critical editions of Burchiello, Pulci, Sacchetti), and digital philology. He has spent visiting terms in several European and North-American universities and is now President of ICoN academic consortium (www.italicon.education). Of his more than a hundred publications, many appeared outside Italy and Europe. Amongst his recently published books: L’edizione critica del testo letterario (Mondadori 2017), Teoria e forme del testo digitale (Carocci 2019), Leggere senza libri (Cesati 2020).
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Full Professor at the Faculty of Arts
University of Pisa
Prof. Mette Zølner
- Academic Chair
- Aarhus University
Prof. Mette Zølner
- Academic Chair
- Aarhus University
Mette Zølner is Professor of Intercultural Studies at Aarhus University (DK) since 2020. She obtained her PhD in social sciences at the European University Institute in Florence (Italy), an MA in European studies from KU Leuven, and an MA in French Studies from AU. Mette Zølner has worked at the Copenhagen Business School for more than 20 years. Her research adopts an interdisciplinary and systemic approach to interculturality in organizational contexts with a focus on how organizations and their social actors negotiate and contest meanings, identities and practices at the interface between global and local practices. She has explored these questions empirically and qualitatively, adopting a multi-level and interpretive/critical approach to studies of MNCs, SMEs and non-profit organisations in different regional contexts.
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Professor of Intercultural Studies
School of Communication and Culture
Aarhus University
CU.mil coordination team
Charlotte Peters
- Coordination team
- UCLouvain
Charlotte Peters
- Coordination team
- UCLouvain
Charlotte teaches German and English for Specific Purposes at UCLouvain’s language institute. She focuses on English for STEM and Business English, as well as Academic German and Business German. Her special areas of interest are tandem learning and teaching languages to students with specific learning needs.
Charlotte holds a Master’s degree in English and German literature and linguistics from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven as well as a Master’s in European Studies from UCLouvain. She’s fluent in German, English, French and Dutch and understands Swedish.
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Instructor for English and German
Institut des langues vivantes
UCLouvain
Colleen Starrs
- Coordination team
- UCLouvain
Colleen Starrs
- Coordination team
- UCLouvain
Colleen teaches English for Specific Purposes at UCLouvain’s language institute. She has taught, designed, and coordinated a wide variety of courses in both Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes.
Alongside her teaching and her involvement in pedagogical projects, Colleen is also an active member of her institute’s working group ‘Langues et Cultures’, which organises multilingual and multicultural events for staff and students.
Colleen’s areas of interest include the role of metalinguistic strategies in second language listening comprehension, and the impact of creative learning opportunities and cultural activities on student motivation and engagement.
Profile page and contact details
English Language Teacher
Institut des langues vivantes de l’UCLouvain








