The Integrity School of the "Universitaria" Consortium was hosted in its first edition by the West University of Timișoara and took place in Buziaș (Timiș county), between September 14-16, 2023, as a result of the decision of the rectors of the universities in the Consortium. The School represents the continuation of efforts, actions and programs developed by CARFIA annually, starting in 2018. The School is the fourth meeting of representatives with duties in the field of ethics and academic integrity from the Consortium universities (the first three meetings taking place within the Carfia Integrity School , respectively the 2019, 2021 and 2022 editions).
The representatives of the Consortium universities, present within the School, reiterate their belief that academic ethics and integrity are a vital component for the proper functioning of the university environment of education and research.
The present edition of the School focused on making a map of the vulnerabilities of the University in the context of the challenges of natural and artificial intelligence, in relation to the territory of the realities of ethics and academic integrity, as they appear in the universities of the Consortium. The presentations, discussions and debates covered the following themes and topics:
A. Defining fundamental concepts for academic ethics and integrity;
B. The relationship between academic ethics and integrity and the legal framework;
C. Procedures of the University Ethics and Research Ethics Committees of the Consortium;
D. The challenges of natural and artificial intelligence;
E. Vulnerabilities of the University.
As a result of the debates, following the presentations made, the representatives of the ethics commissions in the Consortium will submit a series of proposals to the leaders of the Consortium, in order to analyze and implement them at the level of the inter-university structure.
UVT rector, Marilen Gabriel Pirtea: "We are facing an extremely challenging and exciting topic - the Challenges of Natural and Artificial Intelligence. We could call this theme, as well as the entire context in which we live and work, as teachers and researchers, Challenge 4.0, of the fourth industrial revolution, in which the production and transfer of goods that mobilized humanity for the first time more than 250 years ago, they were replaced by the changes brought about by new technologies, which erase the lines of demarcation between the physical, biological and digital worlds. The new network induced a major mutation in the economic, social and political space, which also meant a total transformation of the way the human being knows and understands the world around him. Of course, new technologies, such as advanced robotics, genetic editing, artificial intelligence, lead us to the posthuman sphere, a field of knowledge that addresses a lot of fundamental questions related to communication and language, social systems, but especially ethics.
These are subjects that it is imperative to formulate in school, in an approach not only reactive, but also proactive, preparing people ready to face the challenges of the 4.0 era, intellectuals armed not only with agency but also with critical thinking. I am glad that the integrity school of the Consortium really brought together representatives of all partner institutions of the "Universitaria" Consortium, with the West University of Timișoara as its host, in a very important and relevant year, that of the designation of the city as the European capital of culture, on which occasion Timișoara modeled its objectives from the perspective of the influence that people have on the community in which they live."
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The "Universitaria" consortium was created in 2009, based at UBB, by the decision of the four founding members, representing the historical universities of the country from the traditional academic centers (Bucharest / Cluj-Napoca / Iași / Timișoara): University of Bucharest, Babeș University -Bolyai from Cluj-Napoca, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University from Iasi and West University from Timișoara. In 2012, the Consortium expanded with the Academy of Economic Sciences in Bucharest, a more specialized historical university, and from 2021/2022 with other universities already regionally representative and visible and with national impact (Universitatea din Craiova / University of the Lower Danube in Galați / Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu / Ovidius University in Constanța). The State University of Chisinau is a member with observer status in the University Consortium since 2018.
The "Universitaria" consortium thus becomes the most complex academic structure in Romania in terms of academic tradition, size (e.g. it includes approximately 40% of Romanian students), regional distribution (each development region of the country being represented), the diversity of the study programs (most of the members being comprehensive universities) and the performances in the international reference rankings.
