SignON: Co-Created Sign Language Translation Framework

SignON was a €5.6M EU Horizon 2020 project (January 2021-December 2023), coordinated by Dublin City University's ADAPT Centre with Tilburg University as scientific lead, bringing together a 17-partner consortium to co-create sign-language translation technology with the European Union of the Deaf.

Build a mobile translation app and open-source framework translating between five sign languages (Irish, British, Flemish and Dutch Sign Languages, plus Spanish Sign Language) and four spoken/written languages, with deaf community members embedded throughout design, development and evaluation as a model for participatory AI development.

Work Package 1, led by the European Union of the Deaf, embedded deaf community members throughout the project; the consortium produced new parallel sign-language corpora, 25 peer-reviewed conference papers, one journal article, and virtual-character avatar sign-animation technology.

The technology reached Technology Readiness Level 6 (a prototype demonstrated in a relevant operational environment) across three framework releases, but no confirmed public deployment beyond the pilot/demonstration stage has been found.

A 2024 reflexive case study by project researchers found that, despite the co-creation framing, deaf partners' labour was often under-recognised and under-funded, scientific communication was not always made accessible to participants, and structural ableism persisted — the authors call for centring deaf leadership and redistributing power in future projects.