Juan-Carlos Sager, Emeritus Professor at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), passed away on 18 February 2021. Born in Argentina, where he began his professional career as a lecturer in English, he moved to the UK to work as a lecturer at the University of Salford (UK) and in 1973 obtained a chair in modern languages at UMIST, which he held until his retirement in 1995.

He was an expert in specialised translation and terminology, and became a world-renowned authority through his work, through the creation of the pioneering Centre for Computational Linguistics (CCL) at UMIST, through his editorial initiatives and through his ability to mentor several generations of researchers. He founded the journal Terminology (John Benjamins), the highest impact journal in the field.

He wrote widely cited books such as English Special Languages: Principles and Practice in Science and Technology (1980), A Practical Course in Terminology Processing (1990) and Essays on Definition (2000).

Teresa Cabré invited him to the UPF during the 1997-98 academic course to participate as a visiting lecturer in the PhD programme in Applied Linguistics at the IULA and to give a lecture on “Terminology and Translation”. Juan-Carlos Sager became a reference author for the members of IULATERM. He participated in various initiatives of the group, such as the debate “Towards a theory of terminology” (Terminology 5:1, 1998), where he presented “In search of a foundation: Towards a theory of the term”, or the volume in homage to Teresa Cabré (IULA Publications, Monographs Series, vol. 11.1, 2007), in which he participated with the text “La evolución de los lenguajes de especialidad y la terminología” (The Evolution of Special Languages and Terminology). Sager and Cabré maintained a regular academic relationship around the theoretical aspects of terminology, which developed into a strong friendship that lasted until the end.