Språkbanken is a nationally distributed digital research infrastructure that, in short, supports all research in which language plays a central role. Språkbanken is a unique national key resource that supports research on language data by developing/refining and making freely available:
- high‑quality language research data, especially for the languages spoken within Sweden
- high‑quality language and speech technology analyses
- advanced research platforms for, among other things, 1 and 2 above
- national expertise in language and speech technology (including language‑based AI).
Språkbanken has a long history in Sweden: in 1975, the University of Gothenburg received a government mandate to establish its operations. Today, Språkbanken is a well‑established national research infrastructure distributed across the country—from Umeå University in the north to Lund University in the south, and from the University of Gothenburg in the west to Stockholm in the east (KTH, the National Library of Sweden, the National Archives, and Stockholm University). In addition, activities are conducted at Linköping University and in Uppsala (ISOF and Uppsala University).
Språkbanken is also responsible for Sweden’s participation in the research infrastructure CLARIN‑ERIC, a collaboration among national research infrastructures similar to Språkbanken across Europe.