Being an outstanding technical university in Romania, “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi (TUIASI) envisions “internationalisation” as a coherent undertaking to integrate its own activities concerning education, research and social commitment within the current and prospective global context. The aforementioned endeavour is approached both flexibly and with anticipation of the changes that future economic and social developments will generate.
THE HISTORY OF INTERNATIONALISATION IN TUIASI
In 1990, “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi (TUIASI) established a Department of International Relations (DERIN), which later became a Vice-Rector’s Office and now incorporates the Office for International Relations – Erasmus+ (BRIE). The Office coordinates a number of international activities as well as the visibility development of TUIASI in the community.
The administrative structure of the University currently comprises six Vice-Rector’s Offices: Research, development and and innovation, Academic activities and Quality assurance, Management Resources, Informatisation and Digital communication, International relations, Student Relationship. Besides this six Vice-Rector’s Offices TUIASI comprises the Council for Ph.D. studies. Each Vice-Rector’s Office operates according to its own Strategy with a four year mandate and by annual approved Operational Plans. Thus, each of the six Offices follows general and specific objectives incorporating various international activities, coordinated mainly by each individual Vice-Rector’s Office in collaboration with the Vice-Rector’s Office for International Relations (PRI). Each year, the estimated budget for international activities is tightly constrained, the interest for this kind of events increasing in recent years as a reaction to the global context of internationalisation of universities, companies and NGOs, as well as the necessity to cooperate within educational and research programmes initiated by the teaching staff and students.
Since an internationalisation strategy for the Romanian higher education is lacking and recognizing that limited structured financial support is granted to HEIs, TUIASI has initiated, developed and managed various internationalisation activities, mainly from its own resources and partially with European support. These activities have targeted a certain category of academic mobility (Ph.D. and postdoc students, and academic staff, mainly Ph.D. supervisors), as well as certain research and human resources development activities in the University (e.g. research infrastructure, international conferences/meetings).
SPECIFIC INTERNATIONALISATION GOALS
- Development of strategic educational and research partnerships with higher education and research institutions and companies within cutting edge domains: technical, medical, informatics, agricultural, architecture and management
- Internationalisation of the course structure of TUIASI
- Recruiting international students for all three cycles of study
- Digitalization of the educational and supporting administrative services to carry out the international activities