INCA (Intercultural Competence Assessment) project.

CILT, the National Centre for Languages is the government's centre of expertise for languages and intercultural skills.

In the global economy, all sectors of UK industry and service provision are now required to operate in multicultural environments, whether in dealing with clients or with their own workforces. Currently, however, there is no national framework for the development or recognition of intercultural skills.

'Intercultural skills' are defined as those skills needed to work effectively with clients and/or colleagues from a range of linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Over the last three years, we have been leading a European project to develop a framework for the assessment of intercultural competence: the INCA (Intercultural Competence Assessment) project. The research, a collaboration of partners in Austria, Germany, the Czech republic and the UK, has distilled work on intercultural competence from across Europe. The INCA project has stimulated significant interest across UK industry and training sectors in how the framework can be applied in the national context.

National Language Standards - the UK quality standards for languages at work
www.cilt.org.uk/standards