Abstract:

The paper entitled “The Role and the Importance of the University – Industry Collaboration – A Case Study on Romania’s Situation Concerning Today’s Educational Trends” focuses on the elements concerning today’s educational trends and provocations, especially in the higher education systems, and on the role and the importance of the “university – industry” collaboration concerning aspects such as the work employability, continuous education, workplace learning, university-industry experiences as well as entrepreneurship education.

This scientific paper starts with the introduction section in which the main subject of this work is described in terms of the relationship that exists between the role, the importance and the opportunities brought on by the university – industry collaboration, as well as the relation between the paper and the already existent specialized literature addressing this topic. Moreover, the work continues with the literature review section in which both the implications and the challenges of the university – industry collaboration and partnerships are presented, discussed and analysed, in order to emphasize the main ideas offered by specialist and researchers. Furthermore, the paper stresses in the research methods and data collection section the two case studies focused on the university – industry collaboration and the importance of this type of interaction on the educational marketplace Both case studies were performed in Romania, during the time period 2014 – 2016, as follows:
a) The first case study refers to three Romanian universities (two public universities and a private university) and a sample of 150 students asked to express by means of questionnaires and interviews the role, the importance, the opportunities and the challenges brought on by the university – industry collaboration and partnerships;
b) In the same time, the second case study refers to 5 Romanian organizations (medium size Romanian companies), in which the leaders (the managers of the companies, the personnel having the decision power) were asked to express their opinion, by means of questionnaires and interviews, concerning the university – industry collaboration and partnerships, in terms of the work employability, the continuous education, the workplace learning. In addition, the research paper emphasis the conclusions concerning the role and the importance of the university – industry collaboration based on the two case studies on Romania’s situation concerning today’s educational trends and comes with future solutions and predictions starting from the latest data (November 2016) brought into attention by the “Report on the National Exercise of University Meta-ranking – 2016”, a document published by the Romanian Ministry of National Education and Scientific Research which focuses on the Romanian university and their place in the international university rankings.

The study addresses: the role and the importance of the university – industry collaboration based on Romania’s situation concerning today’s educational trends and puts an accent on the implications and provocations brought by the economic crisis; the changes that occurred in terms of worldwide employability trends due to the recent migration waves as well as multiculturalism; and the rapid changes that take place in terms of technological novelties and innovations in the development of any society nowadays.

Keywords:

Competitive education environment, higher education area, work employability, continuous education, workplace learning, university-industry experiences.