Call for Participation: the 2nd UniDive Training School on Linguistic Diversity in NLP

[Santiago Herrera]

Dear all,

We invite everyone interested to attend the 2nd UniDive Training School on Linguistic Diversity in NLP.

Dates: 20-24 January, 2026 (Tuesday-Saturday)
Location: Yerevan State University (YSU), Yerevan, Armenia
Coordinating Project: UniDive (Universality, Diversity and Idiosyncrasy in Language Technology)
Website: https://unidive.lisn.upsaclay.fr/doku.php?id=meetings:other-events:2nd_unidive_training_school
Cost: Participants selected on the basis of their applications will be reimbursed, details below.

We are happy to announce the 2nd edition of UniDive Training School on Universality, Diversity and Idiosyncrasy in Language Technology. It is dedicated mainly (but not exclusively) to young researchers and investigators. Researchers working on low-resourced languages, dialects and varieties are particularly welcome. See below for the application details.

TRAINING SCHOOL ACTIVITIES

• Courses
  • Linguistic Typology for NLP researchers: Methods and Resources in the 21st century - by Harald Hammarström (Uppsala University, Sweden) and Luigi Talamo (Saarland University, Germany)
  • Large Language Models for Low-Resourced Languages: Hands-On Approaches to Cultural and Genre Diversity in NLP - by Maria Carp (Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania) and Nina Hosseini-Kivanani (RTL Luxembourg and University of Luxembourg)
  • Diversity quantification in natural language processing: The why, what, where and how - byLouis Estève (Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, France), Marie-Catherine de Marneffe (Université Catholique Louvain, Belgium), Nurit Melnik (The Open University, Israel), Agata Savary(Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, France) and Olha Kanishcheva (Heidelberg University, Germany, SET University, Ukraine)
• Poster sessions
• Brainstorming hackathon on open issues submitted by the trainees

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

Each applicant should submit a project related to language diversity and the topics of the training school (e.g., research in fields such as linguistic variation, diversity, typology, and computational linguistics, including specific topics like diversity quantification across textual genres, corpora and languages). The length of the application should be 2 pages (excluding references). The application should contain:

• The title
• Applicant’s name and affiliation (including the country of the affiliation)
• A list of 3-4 key-words
• Description of the project related to the topics of the training school
• Explanation how the participation in the training school will be useful for the project
• Short statement of the project phase (planned, started, ongoing)

The projects are to be submitted via the OpenReview portal. 

IMPORTANT DATES

• Trainee's application deadline: 12 September, 2025 (AoE)
• Acceptance notification: 17 October, 2025
• Invitations for visas (if needed): 20 October, 2025
• Official confirmations of travel grants: Early November
• Training school: January 20-24, 2026

TRAINEE’S SELECTION CRITERIA

We can fund about 40 trainees to come to Yerevan (additionally to local trainees). In case of a larger number of candidates, the selection criteria will include:

• Trainee’s country: trainees only from COST countries and Near-Neighbour Countries can be funded. See here and here
• Age: Young Researchers and Investigators, i.e. under the age of 40, are promoted
• Gender and geographical balance (notably between Inclusiveness Target Countries and others COST countries)
• Relevance and quality of the project submitted by the trainee
• Status of the languages, dialects, or varieties on which the trainee intends to work (low-resourced languages, dialects, or genres are promoted)

If you are not selected on the basis of these criteria and you can find other financial sources to cover your travel, accommodation and meals, you are also welcome to participate.

The authors of the selected projects will present them in a poster session during the Training School.

PROGRAM CHAIRS

• Victoria Bobicev
• Anna Danielyan
• Santiago Herrera
• Esther Ploeger
• Wessel Poelman
• Ranka Stanković
• Abigail Walsh

For any question, please contact the organisers at adanie...@gmail.com and s.he...@parisnanterre.fr

Looking forward to seeing you in Yerevan,
Program Chairs