30/10/2009 - Conference of Romanian Students and Teachers

Sat, 31st July, 2010
Conference of the Romanian students, teachers and researchers living in the Great Britain

Embassy of Romania-Romania/ On 24 October 2009, the Embassy of Romania hosted the second edition of the Conference of Romanian students, teachers and researchers living in the UK. Currently, there are 3,500 Romanian students in the UK, joined by an impressive number of Romanian researchers and professors.

The conference was organized by a committee made of students, researchers and teachers from the following universities: Canterbury Christ Church, Kent, London School of Economics, London Metropolitan, Reading and Westminster, the website ROMANi ONLiNE, as well as representatives of the three patrons: The Embassy of Romania in Great Britain, The Raţiu Foundation and The British Romanian Chamber of Commerce. The participants comprised of over 150 Romanian students coming from the most important universities in the UK.

The Conference had as a main objective the creation of links between Romanian students, professors and researchers. Debating on various suggested themes of interests to all of them, as well as answers to the current economic crisis and the importance of the Romanian language in the European multilingualism context, were also major points of discussion.

The Conference started a plenary session, in which the following guests presented their points: Professor Paul Phillips, Director of Kent Business, Mr. George Iacobescu, CEO, Canary Wharf, Dame Julia Cleverdon, Special Adviser to The Prince’s Charities and Vice President of Business in the Community, and Mr. Christopher Wyld, director of Foreign Press Association. This session was moderated by Mr. Nicolae Raţiu, president of The Raţiu Foundation.

The second part of the Conference included presentations and debates in the four workshops that tackled the following subjects: and the financial crisis; Promoting young people in Romania and in the UK; Programmes for promoting young people in Romania and in the UK; Presentation of the League of Romanian Students Abroad.

In the opening remarks, the Ambassador of Romania, Dr. Ion Jinga, addressed to the participants: “Today, this space is devoted to bring together creative and intellectual energies for promoting Romania’s values and common projects that sustain democracy, political, cultural and academic cooperation and economic development under the aegis of the Romanian-British strategic partnership. Every responsible nation gathers up and promotes its academic, scientific, economic and cultural elites”. The Ambassador stressed that, through the quality of preparation and the performance achieved, each Romanian student, teacher or researcher in the UK bring their contribution to the development and affirmation of the values of Romania in the world: “Here you have the advantage of access to many opportunities but at the same time, your work creates new opportunities for the British society. Do not forget that you are Romanian and that your success can help our country.”

In his address, Mr. George Iacobescu, one of the two Romanian who created Canary Wharf financial centre, the second largest in Europe, encouraged the young Romanians through the power of his personal example, based on a solid education and dominated by a lot of work and perseverance.

Dame Julia Cleverdon urged Romanian students to develop their entrepreneurial skills, to follow examples and become examples and inspiration themselves for the future generations:” The younger generation needs real hope and where there is hope, there is the future.” Prince of Wales, "one of the most tremendous supporters of Romania," upholds through its foundations more than 550,000 young people’s activities.

Professor Paul Phillips insisted on education as the foundation of building professional career: ”Education contributes to economic development. The better we are prepared, the better increases the economic performance.”

Christopher Wyld, renowned journalist and the director of the Foreign Press Association, urged the young Romanians to found their education on a solid information and to develop their qualities of a good communicator: curiosity, passion for accuracy, ability to listen: “ There can be no democracy without information.”

The presentation session was opened by Mr. Daniel Tomozeiu, lecturer in applied linguistics at the University of Westminster, who spoke about the project of establishing a "Centre for Promoting the Romanian Language" at Westminster University, one of the oldest institutions in London where, since 2008, a "Romanian Subsidiary Language" program is developed, which is addressed to translators. Mr. Victor Turcanu, lecturer in Paediatric Allergy at King's College London, vice president of the Romanian Medical Society, made a comparative analysis of management systems for biomedical research projects in Romania and the UK.

Martin Maiden, Professor of Romance languages at Trinity College, Oxford University, gave a presentation on the importance of Romanian language. He stressed the necessity of studying Romanian language at as many British universities, because it is widely recognized by linguists that "to study Romance languages without studying Romanian language is like building a table without a leg. The Romanian language does not deserve to remain a piece in a museum of oddities.” Currently, the Embassy of Romania is taking steps to establish a Romanian language lectorate at Oxford University.

Dr. Marius Enăchescu, vice president of the National Authority for Scientific Research, spoke about the Romanian Government efforts to stop migration of Romanian elites, about motivating those who left to study abroad to return to their country and about the prospects of scientific research in Romania. Mr. Marius Enăchescu is one of the examples of Romanians who returned to Romania after 19 years of successful scientific career in Germany and the United States, including the University of California Berkeley and Silicon Valley.

The conference concluded with the awarding ceremony of the Ambassador’s Diploma, a project launched with the occasion of this edition of the Conference, for the next categories: "students", "teachers", "researchers" and "promoting Romania's image”. Of the 36 proposals received by the Organizing Committee, following the selection process were awarded: Georgiana Chiper (Universitatea Christ Church din Canterbury) – at “students” category; Dr. Alex Dan Petrovici (Universitatea Kent) – at “researcher” category; Prof. Adrian Podoleanu (Universitatea Kent) and Prof. Remus Azoiţei (Royal Academy of Music) - at “Teachers” category; Anne-Marie Martin (British-Romanian Chamber of Commerce) and Costin Raiciu (University College din Londra) – at "promoting Romania's image” category.

© Copyright photos Adrian Cherciu