The British Academy, together with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Australian Academy of the Humanities, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and The Royal Society of Canada, has today published The Importance of Languages in Global Context: An International Call to Action. This unprecedented joint statement highlights the key role that language skills play in international cooperation, especially during global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and calls on governments, policy makers, educators and industry to take “concerted, systematic and coordinated” action to increase capacity for easily accessible education in a broad range of languages. The statement follows proposals from the British Academy and partners for a national strategy for language learning in the UK, published in July.