UB, represented by professor Marian Preda at the meeting of Romanian researchers and teaching staff organized by the Romanian Embassy in London

Monday, September 16^th 2024, professor Marian Preda, PhD, Rector of the University of Bucharest, attended an event organized by the Romanian Embassy in the UK, which brought together Romanian professors and researchers based in the UK. The meeting aimed to facilitate connections between the Romanians in the academic field established in Great Britain, as well as their connections to the academic milieu in Romania.

The event is part of the series of meetings organized by the Romanian Embassy in London with members of the Romanian diaspora in the UK pertaining to professional communities which have a key-role in the residential country, and was initiated and moderated by H.E. Laura Popescu, the first woman ambassador of Romania in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Present at the meeting, professor Marian Preda, who also holds the position of President of the Network of Universities from the Black Sea, highlighted the role of the University of Bucharest in facilitating the involvement of teaching staff, researchers and students in the international academic activity.

In this context, during the speech he held at the event, the rector of the University of Bucharest underlined the fact that international partnerships have an essential role in promoting innovation, research and high quality education, contributing to the diversification of perspectives and offering students and researchers opportunities to learn from other cultures and educational systems. Next, professor Marian Preda presented the scholarships and programs offered by the UB Research Institute to foreign researchers:

Fellowships for Young Researchers – residential scholarships destined for young researchers with an excellent research activity who already hold the title of doctor (for at least 7 years). The scholarship is offered for a period of 3 up to 12 months and applications are open throughout the year. During the program, the scholars are full members of the UB and ICUB academic community. More details regrading the Fellowships for Young Researchers are available here.

Fellowships for Visiting Professors – They are destined for experienced researchers who can prove their international activity and wish to participate to research projects at ICUB. These can include organizing relevant scientific events (conferences, presentations, colloquies, workshops), writing applications (individual or collective), ensuring consultancy for postdoctoral researchers and fellows. More details regarding the Fellowships for Visiting Professors are available here.

ERC Pre-Project Scholarships – these aim to select researchers with an exceptional research activity in order to offer support for transforming their projects into applications for European programs (primarily ERC programs: Starting Grants, ERC Consolidator Grants, ERC Advanced Grants, ERC Synergy, but the list of programs can be extended for Horizon programs or bilateral projects). More information regarding the ERC Pre-Project Scholarships can be found here.

The rector of the University of Bucharest, professor Marian Preda, ended his presentation by thanking the organizers for inviting him to the event and announcing that the dialogue with the academic diaspora from other important countries, such as the US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain will be continued: I thank the Romanian Embassy in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and, most specially, to Her Excellency, ambassador Laura Popescu, graduate of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest, for organizing this event! Thank you all and each one of you for participating and showing interest in Romanian universities!

Professor Marilen-Gabriel Pirtea, PhD, rector of the West University of Timișoara also participated to the event next to professor Ana Bobircă, PhD, teaching staff of the Faculty of International Economic Relations of the Economic Studies Academy of Bucharest, who both underlined the importance of international collaboration, which stimulates academic mobility and facilitates the development of innovative solutions to contemporary challenges, thus consolidating the scientific and social progress.

In this context, it is important to mention that Bucharest has succeed integrating into the European economic landscape, reaching levels of prosperity comparable to other capitals of Central and West Europe. This is highlighted by the most recent Eurostat data, which position the area of Bucharest-Ilfov on the 8^th place in the top of 242 NUTS 2 regions of the EU, thus surpassing other notable European capitals such as Vienna, placed 24^th, and Berlin, which takes the 144^th position. Thus, the average salary in Bucharest is 25% higher than the national average.

The performance of Bucharest is also sustained by the University of Bucharest, which, year by year, prepares the most well-paid employees in Romania: 17.692 lei is the average income obtained by the graduates of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Bucharest. Thus, UB is the first comprehensive higher education institution in Romania, considering the employment results of its graduates and their income.

* NUTS 2 is a hierarchical system developed by the European Union for regional policies (the name comes from – “Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics” and represents a European standard implemented in 2003). Starting with January 1^st 2021 there are 92 NUTS 1 (major socio-economic areas, 4 in the case of Romania), 242 NUTS 2 (out of which 8 in Romania) and 1.166 NUTS 3 (smaller administrative divisions for specific diagnose, the 41 counties and Bucharest in the case of Romania).