01 / Expert
Scientific depth
Explains concepts with accuracy and context, using the learner's target language.
CHIST-ERA 2025 · Science in your own language
ARTICULATE
Science conversations in your own, everyday language.
The project
Science should not need a translator.
ARTICULATE brings together machine translation, conversational AI and speech technology to make scientific knowledge accessible beyond academia and English-speaking audiences.
We translate not only across languages, but across styles: from the formal language of science into everyday, engaging dialogue that learners can listen to, question and shape.
Research approach
A dialogue to think with.
ARTICULATE supports self-regulated learning through a pair of role-based conversational agents, grounded in translated scientific documents and responsive to each learner's language profile.
02 / Peer
Everyday voice
Asks the questions that make difficult ideas approachable, using dialect and informal style.
03 / Learner
Active participation
Listens, interjects and co-creates understanding through questions, remarks and ideas.
Objectives
Four commitments.
- 01High-quality, document-level translation of scientific material into low-resource and dialectal languages.
- 02Expert and Peer AI agents that create authentic, co-constructive science dialogue.
- 03Robust safeguards that maintain factual accuracy and prevent misinformation and harmful content.
- 04Speech-capable avatars integrating automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech in the target dialect.
Consortium
Three places, one shared question.
How can AI help people encounter science in a voice and language that feels like their own?
Heriot-Watt University
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
University College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland
University of Oulu
Oulu, Finland
People
Meet the researchers collaborating across language technology, learning sciences and human-centred AI.
Heriot-Watt University
Heriot-Watt University
Yolanda Vazquez-Alvarez
Research Associate, School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences.
University College Dublin
University College Dublin
Madeleine Steeds
Assistant Professor, School of Information and Communication Studies.
University of Oulu
University of Oulu
Justin Edwards
Visiting Research Fellow, Learning and Educational Technology Research Lab.
University of Oulu
Sanna Jarvela
Professor of Learning and Educational Technology; Head of the LET Lab.
Research outputs
Publications
ARTICULATE publications, preprints and project materials will be collected here as they become available.
Funding
Supported across Europe.
ARTICULATE is jointly funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Irish Research Council (IRC), and the Research Council of Finland through the CHIST-ERA consortium.
CHIST-ERA-25-SOL-01 · UKRI3908
