BrainMap

Angela Albu

Assoc. prof. PhD

Associate professor - UNIVERSITATEA "ŞTEFAN CEL MARE" DIN SUCEAVA

Expertise & keywords

Integrated Research, Development and Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanotechnologies and Distributed Manufacturing and Control Systems Call name:
POSCCE 671/19.04.2015 2015 - 2017

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA "ŞTEFAN CEL MARE" DIN SUCEAVA

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA "ŞTEFAN CEL MARE" DIN SUCEAVA (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA "ŞTEFAN CEL MARE" DIN SUCEAVA (RO)

Project website: http://www.mansid.usv.ro

Abstract:

The overall objective of the project is to increase the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research and development capacity through the development of specific infrastructure and the attraction of young researchers and highly qualified specialists both to the University and to companies with research and development departments the northeast of Romania.

Curriculum for sustainable University Business Cooperation in the Tourism Sector Call name:
539005-LLP-1-2013-1-DE-ERASMUS-EQR 2013 - 2016

Role in this project: Partner team leader

Coordinating institution: University of Applied Sciences FHM Schwerin

Project partners: University of Applied Sciences FHM Schwerin (RO); UNIVERSITATEA "ŞTEFAN CEL MARE" DIN SUCEAVA (RO); SystemCERT (RO); University of Tartu, Pärnu College (RO); Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação (SPI) (RO); Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (RO); Coleg Llandrillo Cymru (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA "ŞTEFAN CEL MARE" DIN SUCEAVA (RO)

Project website: http://www.cubitus-project.eu

Abstract:

In Europe, tourism is one of the largest economies, generating an overall GDP of 12% (core industry plus

related economy), with two million enterprises providing 20 million jobs. Additionally, the tourism sector is

capable of creating 100,000 new jobs per year. (Piet Jonckers. European Commission, DG Enterprise, Tourism

Unit (2005): General trends and skill needs in the tourism sector in Europe. In: Cedefop Panorama series; 115. 2005;

p. 8). Against this background, tourism is often seen as the only economic perspective for poorer and less

well developed regions, and often statistical forecasts seem to support this assumption, e.g. recent

indicators of European travel have been encouraging and international visits are on track to expand

around 5% per year. (European Travel Commission/ETC (2011): European EUROPEAN TOURISM 2011 – Trends &

Prospects Quarterly Report - Q3/2011, p.7)

However, tourism must not be understood as “fool-proof self-seller”, much more tourism is embedded in

complex multi-dimensional structures, developments and frameworks determined at global level. E.g.

tourism is one of the areas threatened most from the present economic crises (ETC (2011) p.8f), and

generally, European tourism is growing at a lower rate than world tourism on average and is expected to

lose its position as the world’s number one destination in the future, giving way to Asia and the USA. Staff

working in this sector faces low pay, very high flexibility and mobility, unfavourable working conditions,

high staff turnover, high share of informal employment arrangements, persistent skill shortages and a lack

of sufficient VET offers, especially in rural areas. All these lead to the fact that already now there is an

extreme shortage of a professional workforce in the tourism sector, and the situation will turn from bad to

worse.

Enterprises operating in this sector need to know about such circumstances. They need to understand that

tourism has become a global business with an unmanageable number of target groups, stakeholders and

key actors external factors representing different interests, perspectives, demands and needs. At the same

time tourism is exposed to external factors as economic developments, demographic changes, ecological,

educational and labour market policies etc. which are difficult to be forecasted or influenced. In this

setting, tourism is linked to many risks and it takes a lot of know-how, experiences and competences to

perform successfully on long term perspective – this issue is much too often underestimated or unknown

at all, and therefore one of the main reasons for failures in this economic sector.

However, it is a matter of fact that 95% of companies in the tourism sector employ fewer than 10 people

(European Travel Commission. European tourism: facts and figures, 2004). Specific nature of company size

structure in tourism and the fact that the sector is practically non-unionised affects common Human

Resource Development (HRD) practices among tourism enterprises. Europe-wide surveys show that the

vast majority of the enterprises operate without professional marketing and HRD strategies. This means

company profiles and general market developments are usually not synchronised and rarely someone

cares for HRD issues professionally (including skills profiling of staff and planning of further VET activities).

At the same time, there are many complaints from employers in the sector regarding skill gaps and

shortages of staff - curiously coincide with few training offers among tourism companies. (Olga Strietska-

Ilina et al. (2005): Summary and conclusion. In: Cedefop, 2005; p. 127f.) One has also to admit that neither

employers nor employees show much motivation to invest time, money or energy in any kind of further

VET programmes and activities. Summarising the said above, following problem situation was identified as starting point for our project

idea:

• On the one hand side, Europe’s small and micro sized enterprises in the tourism sector do urgently

need professional support concerning their marketing strategies as well as their HRD concepts;

otherwise, much of the potential offered by tourism industry cannot fully be gained for Europe’s

benefit, and staff shortage and general labour market situation will turn from bad to worse.

• On the other side, Higher Education Institutions (HEI) do have the potential and know-how for

developing and implementing professional marketing strategies and HRD concepts. However, they

often lack in appropriate university business cooperation concepts as well as general awareness and

possibilities for providing the open market with their know-how.

Therefore, this project seeks to overcome this situation by linking both stakeholders with each other in the

CUBITUS University Business Cooperation Model which will be developed by the partnership. A similar but

more general university business cooperation model P5 already applies very successfully all over the world

for many years. In our project, we will adopt this model for special needs and frameworks in the tourism

sector, but we also will further develop it by newly defined processes and innovative instruments. We will

test the model during the project on the case study of consulting and mentoring tourism enterprises in

their orientation towards the growing market of “senior tourism”; in this context we will also develop the

CUBITUS Guidelines and Quality Standards for Senior Tourism. The CUBITUS business cooperation model

and the senior tourism guidelines will be trained in the 60 hours (2 ECTS points) containing CUBITUS

Course; students/learners finishing this course successfully, will be certified as CUBITUS Mentors

according to ISO/IEC 17024:2003, by which we increase the economy’s confidence in this training. Last

but not least, we will publish the CUBITUS Green Paper, a strategy paper helping to raise awareness

concerning the low levels of Europe’s university business cooperation traditions and standards; by this

paper we also want to share our experiences and findings with others and, mostly important, we want to

initiate crucial developments and changes for the better at educational, economical, structural and political

levels. General rethinking and pro-active involvement is asked from political decision makers and all

stakeholders involved for making university business co-operations models to a natural component of a

successful European education and economic policy.

Stock projects Call name:
POSDRU/86/1.2/S/62885 2010 - 2013

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA "ŞTEFAN CEL MARE" DIN SUCEAVA

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA "ŞTEFAN CEL MARE" DIN SUCEAVA (RO); UNIVERSITATEA PETROL GAZE PLOIESTI (RO); UNIVERSITATEA POLITEHNICA DIN BUCURESTI (RO); UNIVERSITATEA OVIDIUS (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA "ŞTEFAN CEL MARE" DIN SUCEAVA (RO)

Project website: http://bursa-proiecte.ro

Abstract:

The project aims to improve the entrepreneurial skills of the students and the involvement of business environment for a better collaboration and for the support of the innovative ideas of the students.

FILE DESCRIPTION	DOCUMENT
List of research grants as project coordinator or partner team leader
Significant R&D projects for enterprises, as project manager
R&D activities in enterprises
Peer-review activity for international programs/projects