University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest (UPB) is the oldest and most prestigious engineer school in Romania. Founded in 1886, it is the oldest and the largest technical university of Romania, with about 23000 students of which more than 1500 are international students, 3300 full time staff, 1800 part-time faculty and 900 postgraduate students.
UPB offers study programmes for a wide variety of engineering fields, from computer science and robotics to entrepreneurship, business engineering and management. All the study programmes were graded with the highest mark (A) by the accreditation body and occupy, within their categories, the first or, in some cases, the second position in the national ranking of university programmes.

UPB is a renowned research university. Research programmes envisage fundamental research as well as applied research, carried-out through national and international frameworks, contributing to about half of POLITEHNICA’s income.
UPB is a part of the international academic community, sharing the same belief in moral, educational, scientific and cultural values. Its main mission is to bring together education, training and scientific research in order to prepare professionals capable to adapt to the requirements of a market economy and new technologies, with economic and managerial knowledge and promote the principles of sustainable development and environmental protection. As a result of globalization, POLITEHNICA is concerned with the international exchange of values, and as a result of the prestige enjoyed, there are currently collaborative programmes with over 150 universities in 27 countries in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. Also, UPB is a full member in several academic organisations, the main ones being Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research (CESAER), International Association of Universities (IAU), European University Association (EUA), Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) etc…

UPB participated in hundreds of European programs such as LIFELONG LEARNING (ERASMUS or LEONARDO) based on the approved ERASMUS University Charters. One of the objectives of the UPB is to create knowledge through research and technological innovation, as well as through its implementation by means of education and professional training at an European level.
UPB has extensive working experience in teaching and research activities that contribute to the development of students’ transversal skills necessary for the transition to the labor market and for their professional integration. Also, the university provides support and tries to oversee the development and progress of student entrepreneurs.

UPB has developed strong links to the economic sector. There are hundreds of research contracts between university and entreprises from all technical fields. Several technical companies have showrooms in the university. A large majority of university’s students are working in industrial companies in internships and practical stages.
The university department directly involved in the present project is the Center for Advanced Technologies (CTANM), research centre within the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Robotics. It is a research and training unit established in 1996 within PUB, financially and functionally autonomy, acting for defining and implementing both b-Learning current internal procedures and university’s LLL far-future development strategy.
The CTANM’s funding is mainly realised through research and training contracts, with Romanian or foreign beneficiaries, by national, European or international projects.

CTANM experience can count the participation in more than 50 successful European projects developed within the framework of programmes Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus, FP6, etc. Many of them were aimed to the development of vocational training addressing different targets: high school teachers, public servants, foreign language trainers, tourism management staff, human resource staff, operators from wastewater treatment plants, teleworkers, disadvantaged job seekers, etc. In this sense, thus, CTANM has the expertise and the capability to adapt to the needs and specificity of different sectors of vocational training.
CTANM has a highly trained team of experts in didactics and e-learning, some of them also certified net-trainers of Sheffield University (UK), also providing training for experts through the organization of the Net-Trainer course in Romania, available in 9 different European languages.
The CTANM team includes experts in the management of e-learning platforms (latest Moodle versions), such as the e-learning platform of Industrial Enginnering and Robotics Faculty.

CTANM key activities and experience relevant for this project and for its role within it, mainly refers to: its support in the definition of some parts of EQF and ECVET systems, the experience of one of its faculty member holding nowadays the position of President of the National Authority for Qualifications, its collaboration, also through EU projects, with the Institute for Education Sciences, its experience in training course provision being officially recognized as one Centre of Excellence in VET.

Its huge experience related to the organisation of training programmes both for teachers and learners and to the creation of methodologies, also including competences recognition and validation models, is shown by several successful EU projects, such as: SKILLeD (Sustainable Skills for Local Developer) – which involves a lot of entrepreneruial competences, FLY (Financial Literacy for You) – considering that the financial competencies are a key skill for the successfull entrepreneur, YME (Young Migrant Entrepreneurs) – about teaching entrepreneurship for different kind of students, ITER (Improving Transitions, Enabling Results), WWW (for professional women that re-enter the labour market), NIREAS (for operators of waste water treatment plants), CPS System (for highschool graduates), European Employer of Choice (for auditors of human resources support), LAWN (for teachers of local/ foreign language in immigrants classes), Talk-IT (for IT specialists), T&T (for teleworkers) Net-Trainers (for e-tutors), etc…

Finally, the transversal added value provided by CTANM will be the academic level of competence in entrepreneurship and e-learning, the multidisciplinary and professional approach, the high level of experience in the development and fulfilment of European projects, the long-term connection with VET system and the support given by the endorsing of a large and respected university.
CTANM is also part of associations and networks like IMST Alumni, University Association of Manufacturing Engineering, EU Relations and Euroresso.