Towards a national terminology infrastructure

In October 2002, the Swedish Centre for Terminology, TNC, launched a programme (TISS, Terminology Infrastructure for Sweden) aimed at proposing an enlarged terminology infrastructure for Sweden. The programme, financed by the Swedish Ministry of Industry and Commerce (Näringsdepartementet), described the basic prerequisites and needs for such an infrastructure. The suggested main components of the terminology infrastructure are: (1) a terminology portal containing a national term bank and (2) a terminology co-ordination programme. During 2005, TNC’s ideas from the TISS programme were taken into consideration in two Swedish Government bills. This paper presents TNC’s work aimed at achieving a terminology infrastructure in Sweden, including preparations for the construction of a national term bank and the testing of the software of IATE (= Inter-Active Terminology for Europe) for this purpose, and the lobbying work connected to those activities.