Hugo Baetens Beardsmore is emeritus professor of English and Bilingualism at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, and of the Sociology of Language at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. He has worked as a consultant on issues connected with bilingualism, bilingual education and language planning for the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the Singapore, Hong Kong, Belgian and Brunei ministries of education, as well as the Basque, Catalan, State of California and Canadian government authorities, the World Bank, the Welsh Government (United Kingdom), the island of La Réunion and The Russian Federation. For the Council of Europe he has worked as an expert on the Language Education Policy Profiles for the Irish Republic and the Val d’Aoste Region of Italy.
He has published 6 sole authored books, 2 co-authored books edited 5 books, and published 143 articles, 10 reports for government agencies, and 12 book reviews. Most of his publications cover linguistic, educational, sociolinguistic and sociological questions connected with bilingualism. His books include: Bilingualism, Basic Principles, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, 1986; European Models of Bilingual Education, Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, 1993; Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspecitve (with Ofelia Garcia), Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell. 2009.
He was one of the first foreign scholars to be invited to lecture in China (Guangzhou) at the opening up of the country to foreigners in 1980 and was invited to help prepare the linguistic aspects of the return of the Hong Kong Colony to Mainland China in 1986. He has been invited to address the parliament of the European Union on 3 occasions as well as the Flemish and French parliaments of Belgium.
He has also been a regular member of the National Fund for the awarding of research grants on language and literature in Belgium and Switzerland and a member of the coordinating panel for a research programme on code-switching funded by the European Science Foundation as well as a member of the research team funded by the European Commission on the relationship between multilingualism and creativity.