ABSTRACT
At the end of 2011 a workshop was held as part of a project on which researchers and policy makers in the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa (one of the provinces of the Basque Country) had been working together for two years. In a sense it was a kick-off meeting, as the government had changed and this was the first time most of the new elected politicians and researchers had met face to face. There was uncertainty about the continuation of the project. When one of the politicians gave an introduction, he said that he felt it was a historical moment, a moment of change, because they were coming not from being in opposition, but from being out of the political game altogether. 1 Their challenge was to build both political and social bridges. When asked by a researcher to be more concrete about the bridges, he said that what had been happening until then was not only disagreement, but lack of communication. They needed a new language, as the terms that were being used had deteriorated. He then spoke directly to the researchers from abroad and told them that they had an important role to play as they were outsiders to such deteriorated language and could help create a new language.
