Cervantes, Foreign Ministry and La Rioja present this Monday the Global Observatory of Spanish

Eduardo González The Instituto Cervantes, the Government of La Rioja and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will present this Monday in Madrid the Global Observatory of Spanish, an inter-ministerial research body based in La Rioja that will serve as a guide for the promotion of the language in the world and will be chaired by the head of Spanish diplomacy, José Manuel Albares. The public institutional presentation of the Observatory will be led by Luis García Montero, director of the Instituto Cervantes; Gonzalo Capellán, president of the Autonomous Community of La Rioja, and José Manuel Albares himself, Minister of Foreign Affairs. The event will take place at the Cervantes headquarters in Madrid. A round table will then be held entitled “The Spanish language: observing the present to tackle the future”, in which the most decisive areas for Spanish in the coming years will be analysed: from the demographics of Spanish-speaking communities to the teaching or certification of the language. Francisco Moreno Fernández, director of the Global Observatory of Spanish, will participate in this round table as moderator; Carmen Pastor, academic director of the Instituto Cervantes; Elena González-Blanco, director of Artificial Intelligence for digital natives at Microsoft; and Héctor Álvarez Mella, researcher at the University of Heidelberg, will also participate. The Global Observatory of Spanish - whose headquarters will be located in the monasteries of San Millán de La Cogolla, declared a World Heritage Site for being the birthplace of the language - is an analysis and foresight center that identifies the projects with the greatest impact to maximize the value and economy of languages in the process of digital transformation. The Observatory, which was approved on June 7, 2022 by the Council of Ministers at the proposal of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Digital Transformation, will depend on the Instituto Cervantes, whose director, Luis García Montero, will chair the permanent executive committee. Under the leadership of the Institute, the Observatory will be responsible for analyzing the situation of Spanish and co-official languages in the world, particularly in the new digital economy; promote knowledge and prestige of the Hispanic language and cultures, coordinate the action of the Spanish observatories located in different countries and develop studies and make proposals of great value to make the language a driving element of economic growth. In accordance with the agreement for the establishment and operation of the Global Observatory of Spanish, signed last August, the Instituto Cervantes and the Government of La Rioja (through the Foundation for the Transformation of La Rioja) will contribute more than 5.1 million euros to this centre during its first four years of operation. The Observatory (an initiative that is part of the Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation, PERTE, of the New Economy of the Language) will be chaired by Albares and will have representatives from the Ministries of Digital Transformation, Education, Culture and Sports and Science and Innovation, in addition to the Government of the Community of La Rioja, where its headquarters will be located. The PERTE New Economy of the Language was approved on March 1, 2022 by the Council of Ministers in order to promote the use of Spanish in artificial intelligence, science and culture, and to promote its teaching and learning. It has a budget of 1.1 billion euros of public investment, with the aim of mobilising another 1 billion euros of private investment. The former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Ibero-America, Cristina Gallach, holds the position of Special Commissioner for the Alliance for a New Language Economy.

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