The University of Bucharest (UB) (Romanian: Universitatea din București) is a publicresearch universityinBucharest, Romania. It was founded in its current form on 4 July 1864 (160 years ago) (1864-07-04) by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princely Academy into the current University of Bucharest, making it one of the oldest Romanian universities. It is one of the five members of the Universitaria Consortium (a group of elite Romanian universities).[5]
The University of Bucharest offers study programmes in Romanian and English and is classified as an advanced research and education university by the Ministry of Education.
The University of Bucharest was founded by the Decree no. 765 of 4 July 1864 by Alexandru Ioan Cuza and is a leading academic centre and a significant point of reference in society.
The University of Bucharest is rich in history and has been actively contributing to the development and modernization of Romanian education, science, and culture since 1694. In 1694 Constantin Brâncoveanu, ruler of Wallachia, had founded the Princely AcademyinBucharest with lectures delivered in Greek. In 1776, Alexander Ypsilantis, ruler of Wallachia, reformed the curriculum of the Princely Academy, where courses of French, Italian, and Latin were now taught. After 1821, the Princely Academy was continued by the Saint Sava College. In 1857, Carol Davila and Nicolae Crețulescu created the National School of Medicine and Pharmacy. In 1859, the Faculty of Law was created.
In 1857, the foundation stone of the University Palace in Bucharest was laid.
On 4/16 July 1864, Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza established the University of Bucharest, bringing together the Faculties of Law, Sciences and Letters as one single body. In 1869, the Faculty of Medicine is created through the transformation of the National School of Medicine and Pharmacy. In the following years, new faculties were created: 1884 – the Faculty of Theology; 1906 – the Institute of Geology; 1913 – the Academic Institute for Electrotechnology; 1921 – the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine; 1923 – the Faculty of Pharmacy, 1924 – the Mina Minovici Institute of Forensic Medicine.
In 1956, student leaders, mainly from this university, planned a peaceful protest against Romania's Communist regime but were forcibly prevented from carrying it out. (See Bucharest student movement of 1956).
For a while (in the 1950s and early 1960s), it was called the "C. I. Parhon University", after Constantin Ion Parhon.
Most of the building is still intact, however during the bombardments of Bucharest in 1944, the central corpus of the building was heavily damaged and demolished due to Luftwaffe bombs, and was only re-constructed in 1969–1971. Other sections were also completed by 1980.
The university has the following five interdisciplinary departments:
Technology Department
Distance Learning Department
UNESCO Department for intercultural and interreligious exchanges
Department of Education Pedagogy
Francophone Doctoral School of Social Sciences (French: École Doctorale Francophone de l'Europe Centrale et de Sud-Est)
The university also has a publishing house, different research institutes and research groups (such as the Institute for Political Research, the Institute for Mathematics,
the Center for Byzantine Studies, the Vasile Pârvan Archeology Seminary, the Center for Nuclear Research, etc.), master and doctorate programmes, and a number of lifelong learning facilities and programmes. It has partnership agreements with over 50 universities in 40 countries, and participates in European programmes such as ERASMUS, Lingua, Naric, Leonardo da Vinci, UNICA, AMOS, TEMPUS, TEMPRA. It is an accredited Cisco Academy, has Microsoft curriculum, and is accredited by Red Hat for its academic programme.
The University of Bucharest has a number of buildings throughout Bucharest, so in that respect it does not have a single campus. Its two main buildings are:
The Old Building, in the University Square (practically right in the center of the city), housing the Faculties of Mathematics and Computer Science, History, Chemistry, Geography, Letters and the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.
The Kogălniceanu Building, near the Opera House, housing the Administrative section and the Faculty of Law.
Other faculties have their own buildings and research facilities, scattered throughout the city, such as:
The Departments of Germanic, Slavic and Oriental Languages and Literatures, on Pitar Moș Street.
The Faculty of Physics, in the small town of Măgurele, situated 16 km (9.9 mi) south of Bucharest.
The University of Bucharest has been awarded the 2000 National Academic Excellence Diploma, and the 2004 National Academic Excellence Medal. All of the degrees and diplomas awarded by the university are internationally recognised.
