PARTNERSHIP



4th PROGRAM
„PARTNERSHIP IN THE MOST IMPORTANT FIELDS” 2007-2013


Researches regarding the implication of the Romanian universities in the urban restructuring and regional development

Manager project: Profesor Univ.Dr. Ioan Ianos


SCIENTIFIC AND TEHNICAL REPORT





Stage I: The technical and scientific analysis for the implication of the universities in the urban restructuring and regional development Objectives of the execution phase

These targets had been dominated by the accent put on the technical and scientifically analysis for the implication of the universities in the urban restructuring and regional development. Accordingly to the detailed plan of action, this stage is fallowed by the next stage, both having as purpose to fulfill a rigorous analyse on the mode on which the universities, throw there creative potential, have involved in the process of urban restructuring and regional development.

Therefore, the objectives of this stage have been represented by an ample documentation of the terms and the basic concepts, as well as of the way in which the universities have been involved in this kind of processes. This documentation had been performed through a great analysis of the literature, not only national, but as well as international, that could allow an easy interlinking of the results obtained in the studies regarding the relationship university – city – region.

A second target was to provide an analysis regarding the way in which the Romanian universities have been involved in the urban restructuring and the regional development till nowadays, presenting a typology of this two degrees of connection with the local and regional area. In this stage the deployed activates have pointed out an individual analysis of the two directions: the implication in the urban restructuring and the regional development.

In the same time, there have been made analyses pointing out the territorial differences in the way of their implication, resulting from this point of view, that there is a certain relationship between the structure of the universities and their potential of implication in those two general issues.

Summary of the execution stage

The first stage in the elaboration of this project has had a great importance in the beginning of the activity that will be taken during the next 3 years of study. Its main focus on documentation and the analysis of the way in which the university has been involved in the two main processes for the quality of life, the urban restructuring and regional development, has allowed the knowledge of the basic concepts, as well as of the way in which the potential of those two institutions of higher education has been used.

The transformation of the universities from simple superior service performance in knowledge producers attracts a major change in the way of relationships with the environment, respective with the urban and rural communities, as well as with the regional ones. The location of the universities in a certain spatial context, allows the testing of certain theories regarding the development and arrangement, the share in the dialogue between the communities, as a partner which should be listened through the truth of the services, which are suggested, not only for the solving of the crises, but also as well as for the realizing certain targets, which were imposed by the cities or the regions in which these universities are functioning.

In the frame of the project there is a demonstration of the potential an university has in the processes of urban and regional development. In both situations, there are underlined the three essential aspects: formation, the examination and the consultation, with the shades which are resulting from the specific of the two processes. As the way of spatial distribution of the universities is not at random, a detailed analysis of those and their instruction potential was made.

In general, one must observe, that in Romania the location of the universities are related to the extent of the cities, in which they are located, can be very good for universities and population, in the way the both of them can benefit from this reality. The location of the universities in the big cities (including the dependence of the universities upon the cities) leads us to the idea of locating model of the French type (before the decentralization) or rather Soviet. In opposition with these models are the German and British ways of locating the universities in smaller towns or around a very big city. The explanation can be found also in the fact that the French model, and especially the Soviet one, of the organizing the public and state life is characterized through authoritative – centralistic features, and the Romanian model wouldn’t be nothing more than a sequel of a previous organization of the year 1990. In the same time this situation can be a coincidence and it would be only about the inertial force of the tradition, which imposed the great urban cities of Romania as the top university centre.

A second feature of the Romanian superior education is that the main education system is not a private one, but one financial aided by the state (over ¾ of the total number of the students). The private education, being a young one, hasn’t managed yet to impose only partial on the educational market. Not only in absolute values, but also in relative values, the universities financial aided by the state outrun the private ones and these can’t be direct compared.

A very interesting aspect represents also the analysis made over the potential of research of the universities. Taking into consideration the main gaps shown in the distribution of the elements of infrastructure of the university research, some actions with results regarding the involvement of the universities in the processes of urban and regional development have been regarded as necessary. So, it can be remarked the attention, the universities pay to the research centers, which are involved directly or indirectly in the two processes. For such an action it is necessary : the achievement of university research networks on different fields at a national level and the participation together in national and international projects; the achievement of interdisciplinary clusters on a level of complex university centers, through which the transfer of knowledge from a fundamental field in other and from here to the practical use of the urban and regional development; the development of a selective research in the smaller university centers, which should assure beside the specific didactic activities also a research focused upon one or two basic fields.

It is obvious that a relative important space is granted to the way of implication of the universities in the field of urban reshaping. After this very complex process is defined, process which is in a close relationship with the industrial destructor and the third party, a careful analysis is made upon the way the universities have been involved in the urban analysis. The conclusion is that there are four categories of universities: the one which are permanently involved (here we mention :The University of Architecture and Urbanism „Ion Mincu” from Bucharest, and then the technical universities from the four big cities of the country :Bucharest, Iasi, Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara), the universities which are frequently involved (here we mention twelve universities, the main are those with a mixed structure – here are to be mentioned the University „Babes-Bolyai” from Cluj Napoca, University of Bucharest and University „Al.I.Cuza” from Iasi), then follow the universities which are sporadic involved (there are almost thirty universities, among which there are three private universities), and the last category is the category of universities which haven’t been involved into the processes of urban development.

The regional development is based upon a very well defined strategy, on an institutional frame and on operational instruments, which makes that a good part of the European funds to be ceded to this target. After it is made an analysis of the way in which the process of regional development in our country, including the way of diminution of disparities, the degree of involvement of the universities in such a process is detailed. The result of the analysis is that of all universities, the UAUIM from Bucharest is permanently involved in the process of regional development. This detaches itself not only through the great and relatively constant number of projects regarding the arrangement of the territory and through the spatial development , but also through the activity of consulting, which is made by the professors in different central institutions. Frequently 20 universities, in general very well known universities, with complex structures, are involved into the processes of regional development. The projects are mainly the result of interdisciplinary collaboration and their main targets are fields as urbanism, geography, economy, environment, sociology and engineering. Accidentally there are involved 18 universities, for the rest of almost 70 not to be involved in no project of regional development in the last 3 years. These universities, which haven’t been involved in the process of regional development are superposing in general with the ones which haven’t had no project in the field of the urban reorganization. From the category of the state universities are those specialized in the field of Arts, music, theatre and sports. To those are added the universities of Medicine and Pharmacy, which only indirectly develop projects upon the quality of life. The most of the universities, which are not involved, belongs to the private domain. And it is known that those private universities are focused mainly upon the economic and legal field and that the activity of research in those institutions, and mostly in those authorized to function temporary, is unimportant.

In conclusion it can be said, that the results obtained in this first stage are to create a premise very favorable to the research in the next stage. This, through content completes the first stage, drawing an exactly appreciation of the potential which the universities have in the process of involvement for the resolving of the problems of a territorial nature.

Stage II

Analysis of the structure of university fields (specializations) with potential involvement in urban restructuring and regional development: spatial differentiations.

Goals of the execution stage

In keeping with the detailed achievement plan, the major goals of this stage were the following: - studying the structure of the university fields and specializations from the viewpoint of their potential connections with the types of problems related to urban restructuring of the towns they operate into and of the regions which include them; - assessing orientations and targets that focused the attention of the respective centers, institutes, or research teams in universities; itemizing the segments of urban or regional socio-economic life approached in the existing studies.

Abstract of execution stage

The second stage of the present project is an important step forward in carrying on the research, meaning that the fundamental fields, the graduation ones, and the specializations at the level of each development region have been itemized.

The universities are in a restructuring process of their curricula so that a student-focused education can be ensured. Each university has created its own Center of information, orientation, and professional counseling in an attempt to help its students fully benefit from the advantages offered by the Bologna Process being implemented.

The counseling and professional advice centers help the students take decisions on the direction of their studies.

Structuring of the Romanian higher education on three main cycles is based on reorganization of the curricula contents, by identifying and defining general knowledge, competences, and specific professional abilities for meeting the labor market requirements.

The diagnosis made has emphasized a first distorting factor: the university infrastructure is mainly concentrated in nine centers which gather more than ¾ of the total number of students and academics. The capital city has three times more students than its due proportion, considering that less than 10% of the total population of Romania lives there. Since Bucharest focuses a very high instruction potential and, as a rule, the capital cities have representative functions exceeding national limits, the research and university fields included, that proportion does not seem exaggerated. However, the latest 15 years have witnessed a dropping trend, from about 38% to about 32%.

Besides Capital, a strong university infrastructure is focused in other three centers: Cluj-Napoca, Iasi, and Timisoara. They concentrate more than ¼ of the total number of students. In those centers, the university infrastructure is complex and serves several fundamental scientific fields: university, technical, medical, agricultural, and artistic. An analysis of the theoretical spaces of those centers as they ought to be could indicate extremely high expenditures the potential students should have to pay to get access there. In order to diminish such a concentration of the university institutions, other centers have been created with every chance to become regional centers, in distinct historical regions (Craiova in Oltenia, Constanta in Dobrudja, Oradea in Crisana) or at the interference of the regional influences of other centers in the first category (Brasov, Sibiu, and Galati).

The decreasing trend in the proportion of traditional centers is constant due to the appearance of new university centers having a regional role, located in spaces with high human potential: in historical regions, such as Dobrudja and Crisana, but also in other spaces at the interference of historical regions (Arad area, south of Moldavia, Maramures, and others). That explains the soaring increase in the number of students in such regional centers as Constanta and Oradea. Although the traditional centers record an important growth in absolute values, they decrease in relative values due to the weight of the new university centers.

For 2007–2008, the universities organized an entrance examination for 15 fundamental fields that fell into 70 graduation fields, with 299 specializations.

In comparison with the previous year, there are three new graduation fields – forestry engineering, food products engineering, and motor vehicle engineering – and nine specializations – security, fashion, scenography and artistic events, environmental design, monumental art, landscape arrangement and planning, control of food products, geophysics, and engineering of regenerating energies systems.

There are some development regions having representative structures for all the fields. For instance, Bucuresti-Ilfov and the Centre Region are balanced; the North-Eastern Region lacks military and arts-sports fields; other four lack four fields each; and the South-Eastern Region is the poorest of all in point of diversity.

The field of Exact Sciences is present in all development regions, with a peak in Bucharest where the number of specializations is higher: 16. Private universities are found in the Western Romania – Timisoara and Arad – and also in Bucharest but they have few specializations.

Natural Sciences have graduation fields in 15 university centers, with the traditional ones focusing the most of them: Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Timisoara, and Iasi. Other towns – Arad, Târgu Mures – have only accredited private institutions.

Humanities are rather well represented in all the development regions, but the following stand out: North-Western Region with Cluj-Napoca, Oradea, Baia Mare; and North-Eastern one with Suceava and Iasi. A great number of specializations are found in the private universities of Arad and Bucharest.

Theology is best represented in the northern half of the country due to the confessional structure of the population in North-Western, Centre, and North-Eastern Regions. Bucharest and Arad have more specializations.

Legal Sciences are taught in 17 centers and are quite balanced in the number of specializations, with the exception of the Capital which has ten specializations in the state universities.

Social and Political Sciences, with eight graduation fields, have the higher number of specializations in Bucharest, due to the significant contribution of the accredited or authorized private universities. The same situation, although at a different scale, is met in Arad, Bacau, or Târgu Mures.

The specializations in Economic Sciences are quite numerous – 40 – and are present in 22 centers and in quite a large number of branches. Mention should be also made of numerous private institutions having a comparable number of specializations with the state ones – Constanta, Pitesti, or Târgu Mures – or even higher: Bucharest, Bacau.

Arts are relatively dominated by Bucharest, followed by other three towns: Iasi, Oradea, and Timisoara; the Center Region has the most balanced territorial distribution: Sibiu, Brasov, and Târgu Mures. The Architecture and Urbanism field is present in four regions only, in traditional centers: Bucharest, Iasi, Cluj-Napoca and Oradea, and Timisoara; there is one accredited private faculty in Bucharest.

The Physical Training and Sports Faculties are to be found in 17 university centers, with an almost uniform distribution at the territorial level. The private universities are numerous, mainly in the west – Arad and Timisoara – and also in Bucharest.

In the field of Agricultural and Forest Sciences, the situation is slightly different; there are differentiations between the inter- and extra-Carpathian areas, although in the latter the proportion of the active population in agriculture is much higher. The parity system defined by two institutions having the same profile in both areas (intra-Carpathian – Timisoara and Cluj-Napoca; extra-Carpathian – Bucharest and Iasi) is not equitable for at least two reasons: the extra-Carpathian population and area are two times more extended, and the agricultural area is similarly disproportional.

Veterinary Medicine has the scarcest territorial distribution; only four university centers have specializations in that field: Bucharest (the only center in which the private sector is present), Timisoara, Cluj-Napoca, and Iasi.

Engineering Sciences have the most graduation fields – 26 – and a record number of specializations in Bucharest (117); they are represented in 22 university centres. The presence of the private faculties is more discrete: only in Bucharest, Timisoara and Arad, Sibiu, and Constanta.

The Health field is rather surprising: the distribution of the institutions and faculties is quite disproportionate. At the institution level there exist three universities in the intra-Carpathian area (Cluj-Napoca, Timisoara, and Târgu Mures), and two outside it (Bucharest and Craiova). This discrepancy is even higher considering other four medical faculties in four different centres in the intra-Carpathian area (Oradea, Brasov, Sibiu, and Arad – the last one, private); in the extra-Carpathian area there is just one (Constanta). Therefore there exist real discrepancies in the access of the potential students to medical schools.

The field of Military and Information Sciences (Communication and Public Relations- Information, and Psychology-Information included) is poorly represented since it concentrates only Romanian citizens, having their fixed domicile in Romania. Besides Bucharest, it is present only in two other cities in the Center Region: Sibiu and Brasov.

Therefore, the higher education network has to be improved so that it tallies with the population number and permits equitable access to university services; for the time being the poorest historical areas are the most disadvantaged ones (Moldavia in the first place). Thus, a coherent state policy should be enforced to ensure a balanced territorial distribution in the field of tertiary education.

A synthesis analysis of the information on the present university projects connected with the process of urban local restructuring shows that their involvement in solving local matters is quite different. Obviously, there exist very many prospects for building up a direct cooperation between municipalities and universities, the latter still having a potential that is insufficiently or accidentally assessed, and in certain sectorial sequences only.

Considering their involvement way or degree in the urban restructuring process, the following categories of universities can be distinguished: permanently involved in urban restructuring processes, frequently involved in solving major problems of urban restructuring; episodically involved in urban restructuring; not involved in urban restructuring.

If the territorial distribution of the Romanian universities is taken into account, a rather high involvement potential can be detected despite the obvious excessive concentration at the Capital level. All the country’s regions have at least two important or medium universities that cover quite a wide range of fields – some of them with direct influence on regional development.

The analysis of the projects focused on regional development elements shows an accidental rather than systematic participation of the universities in this field; they are involved mainly at the initial formation level and by master’s/doctor’s studies and less by research on regional development. However, the field offers a huge potential that can be capitalized by correlating individual research with the direct goals of the regional development.

Stage III: The individualization of urban restructurating processes and forms, as well as the intra-regional disparities

Stage III of this project is an important step in photographing the development of the territory, knowing the mechanisms and processes that characterize the forms of current regional and urban development in individual categories of needs for development and regional management of regional subspaces.
Complicated process of transition from centralized economy to a market economy and integration of more rapid and deeper into European structures after formal reunification in the great family of democratic European Union which takes different forms in the urban and regional/intra-regional. Urban restructuring, despite regulations in planning the route followed a chaotic generated that general urban plans have been changed, sometimes radically, by regional and urban plans that due to pressure major towns, villages or small towns around have not resisted the temptation to provide space for the expansion of residential areas, commercial and industrial.
A first set of factors highlights the university as an institution capable of sustaining the processes of urban restructuring and regional development/intra-regional. Through the production of knowledge and specialties, the university is directly involved in increasing capacity management processes. Insertion optimal in territorial development must be based on a principle of individual universities and run: respect for the space.
This value becomes higher connotations if respected by professionals in the field of urban and regional planning, since the quality of these projects depends on the sustainable development of communities. Urban restructuring is a normal process, resulting from intra-urban dynamics of any city. This may be more like a process of self-organization in the long term and ultra-long process than a voluntary orientation evolution of a city to certain targets set by communities or by their decision. For understanding the process fairer and forms of urban restructuring was necessary review of the main processes noticed in time in terms of intra-urban dynamics: extensive urbanization, suburbanization, periurbanization and gentrification.
Regarded as a process of making urban structures as a result of the dynamics of social and economic life in general and / or as a process following a major transition from one type to another development, urban restructuring born November rupture and destroy the old functional rupture. Frequently, they emphasized on short intervals of time. Therefore, the process of urban restructuring should be seen, first as a reduction of internal disruption and mitigation of large rupture noted at the urban structures and on the other side as one of continuous adaptation to the demands of “a population in may demanding”. This, from the standards of social homogenization imposed by communist ideology, switch to other standards features a free life in which intellectual ability and work is reflected in expectations across the way of living and life in general. A telling example is this: the population of Bucharest, which amounts to about 2 million people, goes from about 150,000 cars to almost 1.7 million.
In addition, the number of apartments have left to move the houses over the past 20 years the figure of 180,000. Extrapolating this to the big cities we can assess the quantitative and qualitative changes in terms of human pressure on urban structures.
The study makes a direct link between inherited functional ruptures, the process of industrialization and the explosive growth of his dwelling on the one hand, non industrialization processes and conversion of urban land. In other words, some functional and physiognomic disruptions were replaced by others with different causes. In this respect individualize several classes of university centers in the internal report noted breaks in the respective towns, urban centers show the fundamental rupture (Targu Jiu), with major breaks (Bucharest, Craiova, Iasi, Cluj-Napoca, Alba Iulia and other urban university), with important functional rupture (Suceava, Arad, Targu Mures) and marginally functional rupture (small cities - Sibiu, Amara, which are located in some branches of major university centers. The genesis of these breaks were essential elements represented by the utopian vision of socialist city (defined as an intimate space between pedestrian, street and block where the industry was considered as the only urban activity) and arbitrary decisions of the governor. Changes in the urban landscape could be possible due to the intensity and forms that he knew the process of industrialization.
The main challenge of the process of urban restructuring is the major urban habitats, considered today as anomalies whose effects on the city in general and the inhabitants must be permanently improved. The study highlights that this is the large urban habitats, which are the main issues and how could reintegrate the city, for it to better define and urban identity.
Restructuring means urban network and urban restructuring. In this sense it is the system state analysis of national urban and distortions from the main level or at regional levels. Hypertrophy of regional centers, along with capital, reducing certain segments of urban hierarchies are elements that can be partially "controlled" through a policy of territorial development of higher education to capitalize on the amplification effects of economies of agglomeration that can be university.
The second major part of the study focuses on the study of intra-regional disparities, disparities determined using four categories of indicators focused on quantity and quality of human potential, the level of economic development, the modernization of infrastructure and standard of family life.
The reference to individualization of intraregional disparities was regional. To explain better intraregional disparities and to enable comparative analysis, it was considered necessary to present at an initial stage of the main regional disparities. It was found with surprise that after 10 years of regional development policy in Romania, the poor have become poorer and the rich richer.
In other words it has widened regional disparities. Natural question that we asked is whether there is any influence on this process of deepening intraregional levels? The results are very clear. The same phenomena happened at a lower scale, and here the largest discrepancies were noted between suburban municipalities of major cities and villages located deep in disadvantaged areas.
With the exception of Bucharest region, which emerges at the national level, the West, almost completely superimposed on the historical province of Banat region center, the appropriate central Transylvania required by the smallest number of inhabitants affected by the process of underdevelopment. Region North-West, which includes part of Transylvania, Maramures and Crisana, approaching the values of the population share of deeply disadvantaged areas of historic provinces with the highest values: the Northeast and South. Relatively low values are recorded by the South West, where they are affected less than 10% of the population, statistical not reflects it into reality. In reality the deformation of an important role on the back which had mining the coal basin Oltenia.
Study reveals intraregional disparities mainly poorly developed areas, which are distributed in each of the country, having territorial coverage areas of differentiation. Looking distributed global index values of community development at the national level we find that the highest recorded in mountain areas. This means that the resources are much more varied and more consistent of the mountain have been decisive in ensuring the development of alternatives for the locations of places, in relation to those areas of hill or plain. In other words, agricultural specialization exclusively focused on field crops, has high value increasing level of development. This situation is strongly enhanced by high degree of fragmentation of farms and the practice of subsistence agriculture. Exceptions are to this suburban areas and suburban family, which induce a specialized market for food, historically standing out through the vegetable and greengroceries specialty.
Briefly, it may be noted that the results obtained in these stage are likely to provide a more complete and specific processes of urban restructuring and intra-regional development.
With such information can more easily move to the next step related to systems needs to be individualized to the developed areas or developing ones and to the effective involvement of universities in the processes of urban and regional development.