The Rector’s Message

During time, by its engineers’ achievements, Cluj has gained more and more importance for science and culture, spiritual freedom and initiative spirit and the great decisions kept in the memory of generations tell us that the contemporary scenery is the creation of the technical genius, perfected by taste, pertaining to nature, just like the spirit of things in the human spirit.  

That is to see, feel, think, innovate and build for a better world.

The technical education in Cluj was launched with this idea in 1777, simultaneously with the "Ratio Educationis" imperial regulations, which introduced the study of architecture, hydrotechnics and geodesy alongside with the study of mechanics to the school of Cluj.  

This is how it happens that the history of the technical education and instruction of Cluj is both a mixture of signs and a mirror in which everyone looks at his own reflection, to know himself better.

At present, the responsibility of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca has got another dimension related to evaluation, skills and performance, quality and visibility.  

Now we are an EU member state and we have to be prepared to face the rapid changes of society.

The strategic philosophy of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca postulates that the science of the beginning of this new millennium shall focus both on interdisciplinarity and on the personalized evolution of innovative sciences. They will progress extremely rapidly because they have the courage to admit their own errors, manifesting a moderate admiration towards success and admit the things they owe to the past. If we think this way, we need an anticipative strategy, since science is the enterprise of the spirit, which cast light on the blurry icon of the world by a great collective adaptation effort.
 
Not once in human history has knowledge played such a decisive role, with such intensity in economy and in social development like nowadays. The specificity of the beginning of the 21st century is the passage from the information society to a society of knowledge. The unprecedented development of science and technology, partly also due to the digital technologies of data transmission and processing, has compelled us to rethink the structures of our institution.

At present our university is open and oriented towards „mastering knowledge”, which involves the alteration of the higher education paradigm.   

This new concept that we promote is achieved due to the fact that with the support of the university:

• the current research produces knowledge;
• knowledge is passed on by education and instruction;
• knowledge is disseminated worldwide by the new communication and information technologies;
• and finally, knowledge is applied in technological innovation.

Then, we also have to be aware that „knowledge society” or information society is a post-industrial form of social organization, based on content management. But in our activity, we must highlight the fact that, besides the tangible assets, the intangible capital (competences, communication, creativity etc.) plays the most important part related to a high “knowledge”, which cannot be reached through trial and error.

At present, there is a worldwide competition among universities, which fight for prestige, resources and students and this competition environment can also be found in the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca.

In this respect, the technical education of Cluj assures the development of cognitive services in the European educational area, through a process that became transnational.

We are interested in internationalizing education, making the academic career more flexible by articulating the education system with the other systems, but future has to be designed with the assistance of resources.  

Today, we have hundreds of cooperation relationships with universities in Europe and other continents, through community or bilateral programs and also scientific development partnership programs with prestigious companies from around the world and this effort brings arguments by its specificity that we are heading in the right direction. This fact is also supported by the “high degree of trust” mention, granted to the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca after the assessment performed by ARACIS (The Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education), and also by the fact that we have been assessed in 2008 by the EUA (European University Association).

Immediate future shall lead us from initial training to permanent continuous learning and our university trains students to LEARN more than just TEACHES. That is to say, it teaches you to learn.  

But now, the issue becomes more complex because school has to react to the challenges imposed on it by globalization, because the future graduates shall be facing its effects.

In the context of promoting globalization seen as a harmonized reunion of local diversities, education is considered both factor and effect at the same time. As foreseen, education and even more so instruction are called not only to react to the globalization, but on the contrary, to play a decisive part in the development of future desirable societies, inducing qualitative transformations, in such a way as to maintain the diverse identity of the communities and also tolerance based on communication, on the knowledge and understanding of the interest of each and every participant to the process.

In our university the key word most certainly is the word “perspective”, which automatically invokes the future. But if we understand the need of reality, we can think about what Paul Valery said: the trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.” We don’t need to conduct any philosophical discourses on this matter, but we need to understand that future must be prepared differently every year.

University has a special bond with young people, and no matter how many enter the lecture halls, the university shall keep its contacts with the elite of the country. All valuable people pass through university nowadays, as students and some as professors.  

University is to be found somewhere on the way towards generating new richness and power resources, but still, its place is not so precisely defined any longer. It has a multiple and diffuse intervention. It may be a development tool a means of legitimization, it may generate profit just as any other service trading activity, it may be connected to the training of the elite or of the human resources mass.  

University has a privileged relationship with truth, goodwill, knowledge and on a practical level, with the intellectual and moral progress of society. In this context, it has a metasystemic position, because all the other institutions are assessed according to the criteria generated base don the thinking developed in universities. New knowledge is produced in universities and scientific theories are assessed and changed by analytical criticism, in the same place. The ethic of society is in continuous change and under the influence of the ideas stated in lecture halls, the laws become less repressive, more incentive and formative. On this dimension, the central values of the university are freedom, right, dignity but also professionalism, renewal, creativity and reinterpretation.
 
School is the great enterprise of the spirit, which finally allows us to understand that, although we live under the same sky, we do not have the same horizons. School has to generate competences by processing the educational and training information, which should allow the leveling of the acquired skills with the present’s orders.

The strategy of the university is base don the concept of change with the support of sustainable development, centered on intellectual creativity, a feature, which plays an essential part in the transition towards a new social model. Engineers are aware that future products shall imply intellectual analysis and a creative component, which shall observe the requirements of an intensely cultural, information-based society. The strategy of creating and improving human resources are the mark of modernity, having as a goal education in itself and the involvement of all essential factors in the educational process.  

The integration in the European research and education, the homologation of specialties and curricula on European level are the main objectives of an educational system that needs to bring its contribution to the development of a knowledge-based society. All these imply the transformation strategy of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca into a dynamic university, with an efficient management, which shall assure its compatibility with the most prestigious European universities.  

All over the world, the contemporary higher education is subjected today to three important forces, which compel it to change: globalization, communication and information technology, as well as the competition for resources and students. The Technical University of Cluj-Napoca has an important contribution in the training of the scientific and engineering elite and in the industrial and economic development. The educational factor, closely linked to scientific research must assure the competences needed by future specialists in the world of the competition on a free market.

The Technical University of Cluj-Napoca expresses its European calling by a convergent evolution in the context of the European higher education and European scientific research, in a competitive inter-academic environment and on a functional academic market.

In this context, the professional training of the future specialists, alongside with scientific research in our university are the strategic factors of long-term development and aim at a multidimensional and anticipative modeling of the human factor. This leads straight to the “knowledge society”, involving new steps in education policy, as well. The old paradigms of education for everyone and the selection by exclusion shall be replaced by the combination of two priorities, which might seem incompatible at first: education for all and education for each of us.

The Technical University of Cluj-Napoca evolves as a knowledge processor focused on engineering sciences, which becomes the engine of regional development, by its attractive characteristics for great investments.

How beautiful craft engineering is! It is the fascination to see how a creation of one’s imagination is turned into a design on paper, with the help of science. Then it is to be materialized in stone, metal or energy. And then, it is to crate jobs and housing for people. And then, it is to lead to the increase in life standards and more comfort. This is the engineer’s high privilege. The engineer’s great responsibility in comparison with others of other professions lies in the fact that his/her works are before everyone’s eyes. His/her actions are materialized step by step in palpable material and the engineer has the calling to cover the hard structure of science with life, comfort and hope.    

Looking assiduously towards Europe, we understand more than ever that we live in a world of continuous change, in which the independence of the spirit and the surmounting of paradigms lead to innovation and innovation is more important than the value of tradition.  

By the philosophy of its strategy, the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca considers education as a transnational process, which contributes to the international dimension within the European educational context and also sees reform as a means of making the academic career more flexible and turning instruction in an extra-mural activity.  

We are open to the world and we have the calling of cooperation!
We are looking forward to seeing you!

 

Prof. Dipl. eng. Dr.H.C.mult. Radu MUNTEANU, PhD