self evaluation report - Universitatea de Ştiinţe Agricole şi Medicină ...

of infrastructure and human resources, updated information and documentation as well increasing the
international partnerships.
The actual university’s infrastructure for research (laboratories, centers of research and institutes) (see:
Appendix – Research infrastructure) is a good result of the university investments, being realized in a percent
of 40% by university’s own resources (grants obtained by national competitions).
The Research topics (see: Appendix – Research topics), reflect the competencies of university’s researchers,
academic staff, PhD, postdoctoral fellows) and the research performance. The success in obtaining funding,
shows clearly that USAMV is one of the best academic institutions which promote advanced research (see:
Appendix – Research performance).
To describe the performance in valorizing the infrastructure and the human resources in the RTD activities, the
example describing The Institute of Life Sciences is relevant (see: Appendix – The Institute of Life Science). The
Institute of Life Sciences is located in the main Campus, and includes excellent laboratories (6 Centers of
Research, a Knowledge-based Platform for Biotechnology, laboratories with accreditation for services),
reaching the European standards. The concentration of best research resources in this institute and creating a
research entity of excellence, allows performance in interdisciplinary research, the sustainability of a highlevel
infrastructure and organization of international scientific events (conferences and workshops), increasing
university’s competitiveness in the European Research Area. USAMV Cluj-Napoca is also actively involved in
consulting and technical services offered to economic partners (see: Appendix – Consultancy and technical
services).
University’s strategic plans are focusing on developing the technology transfer towards the enterprises and
farms, establishing spin offs, business Incubators, an Intellectual property office and a Business Centre. Also,
advanced human resource training for entrepreneurial skills are encouraged and supported by the strategic
university projects.
To increase its international visibility, the university management stimulates publications in well known ISI
journals with impact factors, and the participation in international scientific meetings. Yearly, international
conferences are organized by USAMV Cluj-Napoca with the participation of personalities from partner
universities, researchers, international professional bodies and decision makers in RTD (e.g., The 11th
International Symposium “Prospects for the 3rd Millennium Agriculture”).
The international cooperation represents a main strategic objective of the RTD policy in USAMV Cluj-Napoca,
aiming the integration within European consortia and platforms, and by developing joint projects with RTD
entities (institutes and companies), in Europe and worldwide, based on the specific topics of expertise.
In the last 3 years, the economy crisis strongly affected RTD financing, resulting in an almost complete lack of
RTD competitions at national level, confirming the need for enhancing the university’s RTD international
cooperation, and that with the social/societal and economic partners.
Infrastructure. The IT, library resources, and multimedia infrastructure, are vital for any didactic and research
activity. The currently infrastructure found in USAMV satisfies the needs but, considering the dynamic in the
university’s specific areas, USAMV Cluj-Napoca will continue to update these resources, and train the technical
staff accordingly. The high quality library services for information-documentation, results in a rapid access to
information, online catalogues, methodological guidance, information/research reference data bases, on-line
inter library loans, using national and international information resources through the Internet, etc. The library
has a large number of publications, for all the university’s study programs, which is continuously enriched and
supplemented by subscriptions to scientific and educational publications. The University library allows access
to scientific data bases, like: ISI Web of Knowledge, Science Direct, Scopus, Thomson ISI, SpringerLink, Oxford
Journals, EMBASE, EBSCO, MEDLINE, and CABI Databases. Scientific documentation resources purchased
through grants and projects (located in the departments) are also purchased by the university library,
expanding the resources available for students (see: Appendix – The Library).
Page 16 SELF-EVALUATION REPORT, March, 2012