Alba Iulia, Romania, March 27, 2009
The meeting began at 9:00 on March 27, 2009

The welcome speech was delivered by Prof. Moise Ioan Achim, the Rector of the University of 1st December 1918 in Alba Iulia. Then Prof. dr hab., dr. h . c. Stanislaw Sagan, president of the ACRU, opened the ACRU Annual Conference 2009 and stated that the ACRU should intend to change its aims and activity objectives in comparison with the ones it had in the time it was established. It should become an institution which not only unites but first and foremost helps to organize our Universities’ potential in receiving EU grants. In order to guarantee it there should be done serious reforms of the ACRU Constitution, its organization and methods of functioning. He also proposed some changes to the Constitution, which were not possible to implement during his term of office. The attempts to do it did not succeed, because those proposals did not meet any interest among the members with the exception of two universities. ACRU is an Association registered in Kosice according to Slovakian law and many legal provisions limit the Association activities. There should be regarded a possibility of changing this legal form of ACRU acting. The authorities and the way of administrating the ACRU should be urgently reformed by establishing permanent secretariat, providing access to the bank account and separate the account and website from the Technical University in Kosice. The President stated that the ACRU is an essential structure in the region, which may serve an excellent plane for joining academic potential of our Universities, as well as perfect forum for bilateral cooperation between them. He expressed that undoubtedly the achievement of the ACRU in 2007 was joining the EUA, which gives other possibilities for collaboration, attracting into it Chinese or other Asian Universities, like e. g. Malaysia or Singapore. He also stressed the expanding collaboration with Ukrainian Universities, which is gaining on importance.

Next Secretary General of the ACRU Prof. Dr Ioan Horga presented the report on the ACRU activities as well as the financial report (enclosed in the annex to the declaration).

After introduction of all members present at the meeting, it was concluded that out of 29 ACRU members 8 universities representatives were present, and there were 17 justified absences. The General Council was deemed to be constituted, since according to Article 10, paragraph 6 of the Constitution, justified absences are not taken into account for deciding the quorum.

After discussing the details of the President’s and the Secretary General’s reports the representatives of the ACRU member universities, who took part in the 16th ACRU Annual Conference, accepted the Activity and Financial Report as presented by the Secretary General by unanimous vote.

There have been proposed several changes in the ACRU constitution concerning restructuring the authorities, as well as electing and voting procedure. After the members discussed their content the voting took place. All the changes proposals were accepted by the General Council by unanimous vote, coming into force with the moment of the voting (amendments in the constitution text are attached in the form of annex to the declaration).

Members present also put forward some ideas for future ACRU activities. The ACRU representatives present added other possibilities of cooperation:

a) LLP Erasmus (IP, Thematic Networks, Virtual Campus, Erasmus placements), Leonardo da Vinci;
b) Establishing an ACRU European Studies Group – ACRU-ESnet – to bring together all Jean Monnet structures on European Studies in the Carpathian Euroregion;
c) Participation of ACRU to academic exhibitions in Europe and Asia, association to the Asialink European project;
d) Creating a package of 5 grants (ACRU Research Fellowship) of 1800 EURO/student/6 months: 1100 Euro granted by ACRU and thehost university will be exempt from the 700 euro annual fee if they provide accommodation and board to the student for the 6 months.

The members were asked to use the ACRU web page for exchange of information about activities, workshops, and projects organized by their universities. The Secretary General proposed a project of a resolution concerning the possibility of receiving refunding of at least part of costs connected with organising annual ACRU conferences by host member Universities from the ACRU account. The resolution was taken by unanimous vote of the present members.

The representative of the Bukovinian State Medical University Prof. Oleksandr Ivashchuk – the Vice-rector – expressed the wish to organise the next Annual ACRU Meeting in Chernivtsi in Ukraine. The resolution approving the proposal was taken up in unanimous vote. The introductory date is proposed to be spring 2010. The exact date will be announced before the end of April 2009 at the latest.

Next the elections of the ACRU authorities took place. First the candidature for the position of the President was presented by the President of the ACRU Prof. dr hab., dr. h. c. Stanislaw Sagan, who proposed to elect Prof. univ. dr. Paul Şerban Agachi – the President of the Academic Council being the representative of the University of Babeş–Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca. The candidate expressed his acceptance to be elected and presented his view of future ACRU activities. Then the voting took place, as a result of which Prof. univ. dr. Paul Şerban Agachi was elected the for the position of the President of the ACRU by unanimous vote.

Next the election of the Secretary General took place. Prof. univ. dr. Paul Şerban Agachi proposed the candidate of Prof. Alexander Brὂstl – the Vice-Rector of the University of Pavol Josef Safarik in Kosice, who was after that elected for the position of Secretary General of the ACRU by the unanimous vote.

The new elected President proposed the three candidates for the position of Vice-Presidents: Prof. dr hab., dr. h. c. Stanislaw Sagan – the just past President of the ACRU, Prof. Aleksandr Ivashchuk – the Vice-Rector of Bukovinian State Medical University in Chernivtsi and one of the colleagues from member universities from Hungary. The General Council legitimated the President to choose the candidature to become the third Vice-President and to create the Auditing Committee.

The participants expressed their appreciation to Prof. Moise Joan Achim – the Rector of the University of 1st December 1918 in Alba Iulia, and Assoc. Prof. Phd. Eng. Mircea Risteiu, the Head of International Relations Department of the host university, as well as to their colleagues for organization of the ACRU Annual Conference 2009.The meeting was adjourned at 4:00 pm on March 27, 2009.

Alba Iulia, March 27, 2009
Prof. univ. dr. Paul Şerban Agachi
President of ACRU
Prof. dr Alexander Brὂstl
Secretary General of ACRU

16th ACRU Annual Conference
Alba Iulia, Romania, March 27, 2009