She received the honour at Umeå University’s Annual Ceremony in Aula Nordica on Saturday 17 October.
Professor Enlli Thomas is a prominent linguist whose work focuses on how children acquire language in bilingual settings. Her research covers the acquisition of complex linguistic structures where children have minimal exposure to a language, bilingual assessment (psychometrics), and educational approaches to language transfer, learning and use. Umeå University cited her significant impact on both research and society, as well as her long-standing commitment to research and postgraduate education at its Faculty of Arts and Humanities and the Umeå School of Education.
Professor Thomas described the award as a deeply meaningful and humbling recognition,“I’m guided by a belief that academic work should not only generate knowledge, but also contribute to policy, practice, and wider Society. In teaching, I am driven by the opportunity to support students and early-career researchers - including doctoral students I have worked with at Umeå - in developing their ideas and confidence.
“I’m especially motivated by questions around how bilingualism develops, how minority languages are sustained, and how education systems can support linguistic diversity.”
Her relationship with Umeå began in 2017, when she visited as a member of a PhD examination committee. It has since grown into a wide-ranging partnership of lectures, workshops, seminars, joint teaching, research visits, and mentoring of doctoral students and early-career researchers.
Joint work includes an ESRC IAA seed-funded project, publications, and doctoral-level cooperation. Colleagues from Umeå, including Kirk Sullivan and Hanna Outakoski, also sit on the Advisory Board of Professor Enlli Thomas’s Ein Llais Ni (Our Voice) oracy project. The aim of Ein Llais Ni is to highlight the importance of oracy within the school curriculum and to offer ideas and strategies that schools and teachers can develop to encourage and enhance learners’ speaking and listening skills.
The collaboration continues to widen. Dr Gareth Evans-Jones and Dr Eirini Sanoudaki, and Professor Sue Niebrzydowski from Bangor, are now collaborating with Umeå colleagues or taking part in its doctoral education programmes. Professor Enlli Thomas has also helped connect Umeå researchers to wider European networks in minority language research, while learning from their work on Sámi languages and Meänkieli.
Looking ahead, Professor Enlli Thomas hopes to deepen these links through joint doctoral programmes, stronger research networks, and more opportunities for staff and students to work together, she said;
“I would also emphasise the importance of international collaboration in minority language research. The challenges we face are shared across contexts, and partnerships like those with colleagues at Umeå University demonstrate how much can be gained through sustained exchange and mutual learning. “I see it as not only an acknowledgement of my own work, but also of the many collaborations and shared efforts that have developed over time between Bangor and Umea.”
