The Project
CrossTerm – Crossborder standardization of institutional terminology is a project co-financed by the Interreg VI-A Italy-Slovenia programme. The lead partner is the Slovenian Research Institute – SLORI. The main goal is to improve the quality of multilingual public services in areas where Slovenian, Italian, and Friulian intersect daily, harmonizing legal-administrative terminology often causing misunderstandings between institutions.
Interreg
Partners
Associated Partners
Diplomatic Representations
Consolato Generale d'Italia a Capodistria
Generalni konzulat Republike Slovenije v Trstu
Cross-border and public institutions
GECT GO / EZTS GO
Partenariato transfrontaliero EURADRIA tra Italia e
Slovenia, capofilato dalla RA FVG – Direzione Centrale Lavoro, Formazione,
Istruzione e Famiglia
Zavod Republike Slovenije za zaposlovanje, Območna
služba Koper
Universities and academic institutions
Università degli Studi di Trieste
Univerza na Primorskem – Università del Litorale
Univerza v Novi Gorici
Municipalities of Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Comune di Codroipo
Comune di Doberdò del Lago – Občina Doberdob
Comune di Duino Aurisina – Občina Devin Nabrežina
Comune di Gemona del Friuli
Comune di Monrupino – Občina Repentabor
Comune di San Dorligo della Valle – Občina Dolina
Comune di San Floriano del Collio – Občina Števerjan
Comune di Savogna d'Isonzo – Občina Sovodnje ob Soči
Comune di Sgonico – Občina Zgonik
Comune di Udine – Comun di Udin
Municipalities in bilingual areas of Slovenia
Mestna občina Koper – Comune città di Capodistria
Občina Ankaran – Comune di Ancarano
Občina Izola – Comune di Isola
Občina Piran – Comune di Pirano
Activities
The CrossTerm project started in June 2024 with a kick-off meeting gathering all partners and institutions involved. A public project presentation followed for the audience and experts, emphasizing the importance of clear and harmonized multilingual terminology for more effective public administration in the cross-border area.
In the second half of 2024, project activities (WP1) focused on understanding the concrete needs of public administration. In working groups, partners collected experiences of public employees and identified main terminological difficulties in multilingual management. Contributions were presented at the joint Koper/Capodistria conference and published in an occasional paper.
Based on these results, cross-border working groups (WP2) were formed in the first half of 2025 to standardize terminology in various areas (labor law, urban and spatial planning, and academic degrees and professional qualifications). During meetings, participants compared terms in different languages, checked their usage in legislation and official documents, and sought clear translations. The result was the gradual creation of multilingual glossaries and a model with guidelines for more effective terminology standardization.
Two working groups focused on toponymy and promotion of minority languages and multilingual work, while another group developed the online platform with the terminology advisory tool (WP3).
Currently (January–February 2026), workshops for professional public services and the general public are underway, with a final conference presenting the strategic document (WP4) planned for late March or early April.