ERASMUS POLICY STATEMENT (EPS) – 2020

University of Medicine and Pharmacy ”Carol Davila” Bucharest (UMFCD) includes internationalization as an integrated part of education and research which will contribute to high academic standards of our University. ERASMUS program will remain an important tool of the internationalization and modernization of our University.

As mentioned in the managerial plan of the Rector, active participation in Erasmus projects is an important development direction to attain the objectives of the internationalization and of the academic excellence in medical education by increasing the inter-universities and international student exchanges and by promoting cooperation in education and training.

Our university is committed to high performance, competitiveness and sustainable development. The vision for our University evolution is focused on a strongly internationalized institution with a student-centered teaching process, vision which will contribute to becoming an important participant in the European Education Area.

The University is committed to enhance the internationalization by continuing the cooperation with already established partners and by identifying and creating new partnerships for medical education and research using the Erasmus Program as one of the main ways to achieve this goal.

Through Programme’s Key Action 1, one of the objectives is to increase the mobility of students, teachers and researchers for improving the knowledge, qualifications and scientific skills and to offer them a multicultural exposure and a global perspective on medical education and research in order to enhance their professional careers and also their personal development.

The creation of new educational or teaching networks with international partners is another objective which is also one of the internationalization pillars.

Concerning the mobilities of the students, the objective is to continue to increase the number of partnerships so more places are available for study mobilities and also training/ placement.

The mobility program is available for students from all cycles (license, master and doctoral) but a special attention will be put on the doctoral cycle to increase the number of doctoral students benefiting from the mobility program. Another objective is to continue working on including in the mobility program all the Faculties of our University after it was extended from one Faculty (Medicine) to 3 Faculties (Medicine, Dental Medicine and Pharmacy) in the last 7 years.

Previous experience showed the importance of spending time abroad to study and learn so our University will continue to work on facilitating the access to mobility program for our students by identifying new partners and opportunities for mobilities. By transparent information, linguistic support and a clear recognition procedure, the number of students accessing the mobility program will be increased. So, more students will benefit from a different academic and multicultural experience, they will know at least one more foreign language which will help them in their future professional path.

The University will also continue to work on improving the measures taken to facilitate the incoming mobilities in order to have an equilibrate outgoing-incoming balance.

The mobilities for teachers/researchers will be supported and both teaching and training mobilities are encouraged within the University because one important objective is to obtain an increase of the quality of teaching and research. The staff will present the results of their research/training period and they will be asked to suggest improvements of the teaching and research methodology based on the mobility experience.

Our University will also work on improving the cooperation with international partners on research projects via Programme’s Key Action 2 which will contribute to the modernization and internationalizations objectives. For example, the newly created CiEH – Centre for Innovation and e-Health defined as a center dedicated to innovation and technological transfer will work on identifying opportunities of international cooperation also by the Programme’s Key Action 2.

As mentioned in the managerial plan of the Rector, in the context of internationalization, the main objectives are to promote cooperation with strategic partners, to encourage interuniversity and international exchanges of students and teachers through mobility programs including Erasmus + and other bilateral collaborations and to extend the mobility program to all faculties of UMFCD; another objective is the wider development of Erasmus teaching or training mobility for teachers, PhD students and auxiliary and administrative teaching staff.

The University will update and renegotiate existing bilateral agreements and connect with new potential partners based on the existence of a mutual interest in the development of mobility or research programs. Also, for new partnerships, the linguistic aspect will be assessed so that the mobility of students and staff is not hindered by linguistic barriers. Our current partnerships are focused on European countries, with most outgoing-incoming mobilities being European mobilities. As our University offers one of the undergraduate programs (Medicine) in English, the new partnerships will be facilitated by this positive aspect, allowing a balanced number of outgoing-incoming mobilities. With the development of English language teaching, one of the objectives is to extend the mobility program to non-European countries.

In addition, in addition to the mobility program, UMFCD will actively identify partners for international cooperation in the field of medical education and research in the context of modernization and internationalization of the University by initiating KA2 cooperation projects.

The activities necessary for an adequate participation in the mobility and cooperation programs will be carried out by the International Relations Office with the Erasmus + Bureau subdivision in collaboration with other structures of UMFCD (Dean’s Offices, Finance Department, Research Department) under the coordination of the Vice-Rector for European and International Cooperation who also has the role of Erasmus Institutional Coordinator (https://umfcd.ro/relatii-internationale/erasmus/biroul-pentru-erasmus/). The Erasmus + Office is responsible for organizing the selection process of participants and coordinates the mobilities from all points of view (administrative, financial, academic). The Dean’s Offices contribute to the organization of the study contract of the participant and to the academic recognition process.

The Erasmus + Office prepares most of the documents necessary for a mobility: study contract (learning or training agreement), documents required for the application file, documents required for the recognition process, financial contract, other internal documents required according to the standard operating procedures of the University; it monitors and advises the participant throughout the mobility, providing support whenever he / she requests it. The dean's offices carry out the process of academic recognition of credits and grades based on the documents sent by the Erasmus + Office and support the student in resuming academic activity at UMFCD and in reintegrating into the academic community after completing the mobility.

The entire activity of those involved is based on standard operating procedures dedicated to the Erasmus program and which are periodically reviewed according to the new regulations and recommendations but also according to the emergence of new activities by expanding the University’s participation in the Program.

In order to ensure the quality of mobility, there are working procedures for the selection of participants, for the activities carried out before, during and after the end of the mobility, for the conclusion of bilateral agreements and for the management of the financial aspects of the Program.

The work of the International Relations Office and the Erasmus + Office is periodically audited internally. In addition, members of the Erasmus+ Bureau will continue to attend training sessions organized by the National Agency to keep up to date with the latest regulations and recommendations in the field of both mobility (Key Action 1) and international cooperation on health education and research (Key Action 2).

The Erasmus program is considered to be an important contributor to increasing the degree of internationalization of UMFCD.

Related to the mobility program (Key Action 1) UMFCD aims to increase the number of study mobility offered to students of the Faculty of Medicine (from approximately 80 / academic year currently to 100 / academic year). UMFCD aims to double the number of study mobility for the Faculties of Pharmacy and Dentistry and to initiate the study mobility program for the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery. Also, UMFCD aims to double the number of traineeship / placements mobilities offered to students and to extend this type of mobility to all Faculties and educational cycles, especially for the doctoral cycle. As a deadline for achieving these objectives, UMFCD has set itself the year 2025.

For teachers, we will actively work to increase the number of teaching and training mobility from 1-2 / academic year to 6-10 / academic year until 2025.

In 2021, the existing bilateral agreements will be renegotiated and renewed. In the period 2021- 2023, new partners will be identified for the conclusion of new bilateral agreements that will allow the achievement of the mentioned objectives regarding the evolution of the number of mobilities.

In the period 2021-2025, UMFCD will identify new strategic partners for the development and development of international cooperation projects within Key Action 2 following two main directions:

• medical education in the context of the University's modernization objective (development of the eLearning system and improvement of the curriculum and teaching techniques) and the possibility of developing new study programs in collaboration with international partners (eg master's programs)
• cooperation for the training of researchers and the development of institutional lines for scientific research in various medical fields.

Thus, the further development of the projects developed within the Program will have a major impact on the objectives of internationalization and modernization, impact that will be evaluated by the number of Mobility Participants (students in all 3 cycles and from all UMFCD Faculties; number of teachers ; number of auxiliary staff), number of requests to participate, number of cooperation projects carried out, contribution to the development of the education system through curriculum changes and teaching techniques, contribution to research development (number of projects having as main objective the collaboration in the field research).