Mudem (asker) Nov 24, 2017:

Thank you so much Tony for your help. You really help me to see more clearly how I can translate this sentence. I think I will assume that the writer meant research process within the Comittee => dans le cadre du Comité. However, I will put a note for my client with your useful remarks and propose another translation assuming that is it is the network which is in conjunction with the Committe. Concerning the context, the problem is that both explanations are possible. The research might be carried out by the Committe but the network might as well be in place within the Committe (dans le cadre) ... Again, thank you Tony for your time and your clear explanations ! It is such a pleasure to have the opportunity to exchange with people like you on this forum !! I wish you a nice day and will keep you informed of the final choice made by the final client.

Tony M Nov 24, 2017:

@ Asker Also, it might help to have some idea as to the possible native language of the writer? This might enable to you back-translate this expression 'engaged with' and see if it makes any more sense; the fact that there seem to be some definite articles missing (though it is not quite clear which ones, where!) may be a further clue as to the writer's 'thinking anguage'.

Tony M Nov 24, 2017:

@ Asker No, I don't agree with A/T's suggestion 3 at least, not wholeheartedly, and not without any corrorborating wider context. It requires one to assume that the writer incorrectly used the verb 'engaged' when they really meant 'undertaken' — in which case I would unhesitatingly agree with A/T's suggestion.
But there is this niggling doubt as to why they used the expression 'engaged with', which normally has a quite different meaning, that wouldn't at first sight appear to fit in the sentence here. To my mind, the thing is, if it meant "the research process about trade networks undertaken...", then it would be curious to use 'with' — one would normally say it was 'undertaken by the Committee'; so is it the trade network that was underating the research in conjunction with the Committee? The En is so bad, that could be an equally valid interpretation.

Your wider context might help you understand if this Committtee is carrying out research ABOUT trade networks, or if the trade networks are helping the Committee in some other research it is doing; these are the sort of indirect clues you might be able to glean from other questions in your document, or from the background of the document

Tony M Nov 24, 2017:

@ Asker The trouble is, the expression 'engaged with' has one common meaning in EN, but I'm not convinced this is actually being used correctly here; were it to have the meaning 'undertaken with / being carried out in conjunction with' (referring in that case to 'research process'), one would expect to find 'engaged in with', making it a passive transitive verb with 'research process' as the object; but as it stands, with no other preposition, it becomes an intransitive verb with 'the XX Committee' as its indirect object.
I suspect the problem is in fact that the writer has tried to use 'engaged with' (something of a buzzword!), but has failed to fully understand what it actually means; my hunch is that what they were actually trying to say was something more along the lines of: "on [the] trade network with [which] the XX Committe [is involved]"

And of course, "How do the research process ... is bridging gaps..." is just plain wrong!
One can only assume It was intended to mean "How is the research process ... bridging [the] gaps...
"

Mudem (asker) Nov 24, 2017:

This is indeed the problem and I am afraid that I do not quite understand what the writer meant by "engaged with". Do you agree with Allegro and shall I follow his advice i.e. that it is the research that is engaged with ?? (la recherche est entreprise dans le cadre / avec ) ?

Tony M Nov 24, 2017:

@ Asker Akthough the meaning here is fairly clear, I assume you are aware that this is poor EN, with at least one actual grammatical error ["How do...is..."], and I strongly suspect this is not written by a native speaker of EN.
As such, one has to bear in mind the posibility that the writer didn't actually use the correct expression for the meaning they were seeking to convey.