The Department is an important centre for research in translation, interpreting and intercultural studies, with a strong record of publications and grant capture. In the recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2020, the results of which were announced in May 2021, the Department was ranked 4* ("World-leading", the top possible ranking) for both Research Environment and Impact, indicating a flourishing, vibrant and world-class research culture.
Research in the Department is principally arranged in three main clusters:
- Interpreting, focusing chiefly on cognition, community and refugee interpreting, political interpreting, and interpreter training.
- Literary Translation and Intercultural Studies, with particular interests in regional minority cultures and literature, the translation of modern Chinese literature, and children's literature translation.
- Intersemiotic Translation, in contexts such as museum representation and film adaptation.
In addition, the Department is also building capacity in other research areas, in particular translation in digital and online environments, such as Wikipedia.
The Department's research also finds strong synergies with the Faculty Niche Research Area (FNRA) of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, in particular its FNRA subgroups of Minority Studies/Marginalized Population Studies, Framing Public Culture, and Anthropocene Studies.
A number of the Department's team are also concurrently Fellows of the Centre for Translation, which synergizes closely with the Department and plays a key role in fostering the rich research environment of HKBU Translation as a whole.
