The CCU project was created as an exercise of
watchdog and benchmarking, meant to give a complete image of the academic integrity in Romania.
The project developed an i
ntegrity ranking for Romanian state universities by applying an already tested methodology was used in a pilot phase of the same project (October 2007-May 2008, funded by a MATRA-KAP Grant of the Embassy of Netherlands in Bucharest).
External evaluators were selected for monitoring the integrity and transparency of the universities. The project started by mapping out the problems of integrity that exist in the Romanian higher education system, and classified them by categories.
- the administrative transparency and probity - the publication of accounting documents; publishing income declarations and declarations of interests and those reflecting the status of not being involved in the communist political police; access to public records on acquisitions;
- academic fairness - plagiarism, performance in research, academic unfolding process;
- quality of governance - nepotism, involvement of students in decision making, usage of financial grants, filling teaching positions;
- financial management - discretionary expenditure, managing public acquisitions processes.
- 42 state universities were evaluated, out of a total of 56, during 3 months. At the end of this programme, the Coalition published the Integrity ranking of Romanian Universities.
The project received the support of the main stakeholders: The Ministry of Education, Research and Youth, Students’ Organisations (ANOSR), Trade Union (Alma Mater), The National Agency for Quality Evaluation in Higher Education (ARACIS), educational NGOs.
The Coalition for Clean Universities is composed of the following:
- Centre for Independent Journalism (CJI),
- Pro Democracy Association (APD),
- Euroregional Centre for Democracy (CED),
- National Association of Students Organizations from Romania (ANOSR),
- The Group for Reform in Universities (GRU)
- Group for Social Dialogue (GDS)
- Romanian Academic Society (SAR)
- University Solidarity Association (SU)
- EduCer Association (EduCer)
- Ad-Astra Association (Ad Astra)
- Romanian Society of Political Science (SRSP)
- FAR Association (FAR)
- New Europe College Foundation (NEC)