Our origins

The Federation emerged in 2007 when three major organisations decided to work jointly on developing plain language as a profession.

These three – the Center for Plain Language, Clarity, and the Plain Language Association International (PLAIN) – each nominated two representatives and between them selected another six experts representing a range of countries and languages.

Meetings

We met for the first time at the 2008 Clarity conference in Mexico City, where we mapped out a Federation agenda (subsequently published in Clarity in 2010) . 

Since then, we have met most years at the international plain language conference, including in Lisbon, Stockholm, Washington, Vancouver, Antwerp, Dublin, Graz, and Montreal.

Currently we are focused on establishing an international plain language standard.