EUROPEAN UNION OF THE DEAF AISBL

Their core work

The European Union of the Deaf (EUD) is the Brussels-based umbrella organization representing the interests of Deaf people across Europe. In H2020 projects, they serve as the critical end-user voice and accessibility authority, ensuring that technologies — particularly AI-driven sign language translation, recognition, and avatar systems — are designed with and for Deaf communities. They bridge the gap between technology developers and the Deaf community, providing user requirements, testing, validation, and dissemination within their extensive European network of national Deaf associations.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

EUD's early H2020 involvement (2015–2019) focused on broader digital inclusion themes — emergency services accessibility (NEXES) and connected health platforms for ageing populations (SHAPES), with keywords around community participation, connectivity, and market shaping. From 2019 onward, their focus sharpened dramatically toward AI-powered sign language technologies: machine translation, recognition, avatar generation, and automatic speech recognition (aiD, EASIER, SignON). This shift reflects a move from general accessibility advocacy to becoming a key partner in the rapidly advancing field of computational sign language processing.

EUD is moving deeper into AI-driven sign language technology, positioning itself as the essential user-side partner for any European project developing automated sign language tools.

How they like to work

EUD always participates as a partner, never as coordinator — consistent with their role as an advocacy and user-representation body rather than a research institution. They operate in large consortia (90 unique partners across 5 projects, averaging 18+ partners per project), which reflects their function as a dissemination and community engagement hub. Their value lies in providing legitimacy, user access, and real-world validation that technology developers cannot achieve on their own.

EUD has collaborated with 90 unique partners across 21 countries, giving them one of the broadest networks in the accessibility and sign language technology space. Their reach spans most of the EU, with strong connections to both university research groups and technology SMEs working on language and AI.

What sets them apart

EUD is the only pan-European organization that can speak authoritatively for the Deaf community in research and innovation projects. No university lab or tech company can replicate their direct connection to national Deaf associations across 30+ countries. For any consortium developing sign language technology, communication accessibility tools, or inclusive AI, EUD provides irreplaceable user validation, ethical grounding, and a built-in dissemination network reaching millions of Deaf Europeans.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SignON
  Largest single grant (EUR 373,500) — a sign language translation mobile app combining recognition, machine translation, and avatar output in one open framework.
• EASIER
  Focused specifically on intelligent automatic sign language translation using neural MT and deep learning — represents the technical frontier of EUD's involvement.
• SHAPES
  Largest consortium context (smart ageing ecosystem), showing EUD's ability to contribute accessibility expertise beyond sign language into broader health and ageing domains.