The Ph.D. School of Communication, Public Relations and Advertising is announcing for 4th of June 2021 the defense of the thesis: Branding in universities Study case: Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca and Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, authored by Elena-Ruxandra Ursache from the Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences.

As a relatively new field in the area of advertising, branding is a very challenging and productive ground for research. This is all the more interesting as the thesis explores branding in institutions and organizations that don’t have an economic activity.

If we refer to Romania, the social, economic, cultural and education contexts in today’s Romania are very complex and very dynamic. Thus, universities, as higher education providers, need a strategy for permanent modernization and adaptation to answer current needs. We are referring here to both the needs and expectations of students, as prime beneficiaries of academic training, and to the demands of the labor market. It is almost unanimously acknowledged that education – the education and training system – is at the basis of other strata of society, therefore it is a national interest in continuous flow. This is however a normal thing since the labor market keeps changing in its turn. An efficient higher education system is one that succeeds in training experts in the fields needed by society, also in ever-growing change, and even in fields that do not yet exist, but might come up in the near future.

In other words, we can assert that higher education must permanently be in touch with society and see in which direction it evolves; then, through applied, anticipatory and visionary efficient management, higher education can train experts to answer the demands of this society. For this reason, we are justified in asking: to what extent do universities in Romania manage to answer these challenges, to anticipate all of the changes that mark current society and to successfully adapt to these changes? In some way or another, all of these aspects are found in the idea of university brand and branding. Should universities prepare experts for the labor market or must they educate good citizens? Or is it both? Should professors be their students’ teachers or managers who use and coordinate the existing resources?