Alongside the development of inter-institutional translation memory systems (internal Euramis), previously separate resources such as the Commission's Eurodicautom and Parliament's Euterpe, were merged into the common inter-institutional terminology database IATE (InterActive Terminology for Europe), which has been used by the EU's translation services since summer 2004.
Today the database contains roughly 8.7 million terms and on its public version it receives on average 5000 queries per hour from all over the world.
In 2008, Parliament decided to set up a service to coordinate all issues related to the IATE database and the terminology work carried out in the translation units.
The permanent staff, currently numbering ten officials, is assisted by both graduate and undergraduate trainees, who contribute to the achievements of the unit by using their specialised knowledge and skills during a traineeship period of 1–6 months.
The rotating terminologists' main responsibilities include participating in TermCoord's work on IATE, in particular doing updates in their native language, and liaising with the translation units to identify best practices.
The latter puts in place task forces and working groups in order to constantly improve the content, interface and functions of IATE.
So far, projects were carried out in areas such as human rights (the EP is responsible for this thematic area in IATE), financial markets, EP's Rules of Procedure, LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) basic terms, IT terminology and term mining with the help of extraction tools.
[4] These seminars regularly attract a large audience to the historic setting of the original European Parliament Chamber in Luxembourg.
[12] Another trainee, Agnieszka Andrzejewska, wrote an assignment on her traineeship in the Unit[13] TermCoord has an important academic cooperation with Universities all over Europe.
[17] Furthermore, TermCoord has participated in several conferences and has given presentations on different aspects of terminology and IATE work carried out within the EP and the other EU institutions.
[18] TermCoord uses various means of communication both to keep the terminologists and translators of Parliament up to date and to facilitate the cooperation within the EP and between the Institutions mentioned above.
Both websites are used for publishing material from seminars, workshops and training sessions, as well as links to important terminology databanks and other terminology-related sites.
An outline of the Unit's principal activities is published in a quarterly newsletter for the information of colleagues in the Parliament and in the other EU institutions.