Grigore T. Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy (Iasi, Romania)

The University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Grigore T. Popa” Iasi is a public institution of advanced scientific research and higher education.

The University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Grigore T. Popa” Iasi is a public institution of advanced scientific research and higher education. The scientific research activity is the main goal of the academic mission, giving an adequate educational and forming process for Bachelor’s degree, Master and PhD study programs.

The basic, cross disciplinary and applied scientific research has developed in the last years the national and international visibility of our researchers who have published only in the last three years over 1500 original papers in ISI Journals, more than 1400 articles in national and international non-ISI Journals and they have presented the research results at international prestigious conferences. The financing of national and international gained projects was the main source to develop the advanced scientific research infrastructure.

During the last five years the University was partner in a HEALTH PROGRAMME project, a JUSTICE PROGRAMME project, in 2 FP7 projects, 5 ERA-NET projects, coordinator for 1 ERA-NET Project, participant as partner /coordinator of the national groups in COST Actions, partner in an 2 AUF projects, partner in a RO-SWISS project, partner in 4 ERASMUS/ERASMUS+ and coordinator  in an ERASMUS+ project, partner in a GRUNTVIG project, partner in a TEMPUS project, coordinator of a national Cooperation project, partner in other 8 projects from the same program and the host institution for 5 national IDEAS projects, 4 national EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH and 3 HUMAN RESOURCES national projects.

The research activity represents a priority for both faculty and students. The university hosts several active research groups that are involved in national research grant programs (IDEI, Partnership national projects PNII, Human resources projects) as well as in international projects. The research infrastructure comprises two research platforms and nine research centers.

In the last five years, our University has been a coordinator or collaborator in 96 national projects, including National Plan II IDEAS – Exploratory Research Projects, National Plan II Applied Collaborative Research Projects, National Plan II – Human Resources (PhD Fellowships, PhD Research Projects and Postdoctoral Research Projects), Private funded research Projects, Structural Funds POSCCE, Research Human Resources 2007-2013. It was also involved in over 19 international projects including FP7 Projects, ERA-NET Projects, ORPHANET Projects and various other projects.

“Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Iasi has ongoing scientific cooperation and academic exchange programs with renowned universities from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, USA, and Canada. In LLP Erasmus program there are 25 agreements with universities in Belgium, France, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Spain, Turkey. Teachers and students travel to and from these universities in order to organize, deliver or benefit from learning opportunities.

An important step was the successful completion of two full academic evaluations of the Faculty of Medicine, one performed by the Evaluation Committee of CIDMEF (international organization representing the Deans of Faculties of Medicine from francophone countries where our Faculty has been an active member since 1992) and another by ARACIS, the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. These certifications provide a framework to compare and appreciate the teaching on European and international terms.

In 2016/17 academic year, there are 620 foreign students enrolled in UMFIASI. Other 850 students are currently enrolled in the 2nd to 6th year of study.

UMFIASI uses intensively ICT solutions for administration of almost all internal agendas: management, academics. Three different platforms are used: (i) e-learning platform, (ii) ERP (enterprise resource planning) platform and (iii) student portal.

From 2010, the processes of teaching and evaluation in UMFIASI are based on the e-learning platform which provides all necessary tools for teaching and students assessment. This modern, dynamic, dedicated, and professional training environment is ready to integrate with new ICT-based methodologies, such as medical simulations or case-based learning methods, which are facilitated usually with other specific ICT platforms.

UMFIASI has an IT Department which governs over plenty of human and technical resources. There is also a strong Department of Medical Informatics and Biostatistics which train students in Medical Statistics during the first year. The department employs seven teachers who, more than their specialization in biostatistics, are also very good programmers in SQL, Java or .NET. The entire IT staff was trained in Microsoft and Oracle technologies during the implementation of the EU-funded projects finalized in 2010 and 2011 with the ICT platforms described above.