Mini Track on Civic Engagement and Sustainable Education

Minitracks

THE 7th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
ON ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Exploring Global Perspectives: The Future of Economics and Social Sciences

13-14 June 2024, Bucharest, Romania

Mini Track Chairs

  • Magdalena IORDACHE-PLATIS, University of Bucharest, Romania

  • Dumitru MIRON, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania

  • Vasileios NTOUROS, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Higher education institutions have the capacity to meet global challenges in the current global context. Areas, such as health, climate, environment, energy, digitalization, society, crisis have been considered priorities for education, research, and social responsibility actions of educational leaders. Societal challenges made all institutions work together to raise awareness and act in joint approaches. In this context, higher education institutions, alliances of universities and networks of different stakeholders promoted knowledge, skills, and competences together with civic engagement of staff and students towards responsible citizenship and community development. Therefore, sustainability has become a priority for academic leadership and higher education institutions have increased their role in coping with societal challenges, concrete actions being identified at individual, institutional and social level. The orientation towards sustainability is observed in universities from workshops and events dedicated to raise awareness on specific topics to sustainability strategies, from dedicated actions to transversal embedding of sustainability into teaching, research, contribution to society, as well as into management and administration changes. New innovative pedagogies, such as service learning prove the tremendous higher education capacity of response not only to the global challenges, but also to the stakeholders needs. In other words, addressing the current complexity and dynamism of initiatives based on innovation, entrepreneurial and civic approach transforms higher education institutions into effective contributors to the achievement of the SDGs.

  • Service learning and challenges for universities
  • SDGs challenges and university practices
  • Civic engagement and community impact
  • Sustainable university initiatives
  • Strategic partnerships for civic universities
  • Innovative pedagogies for sustainable education
  • Social entrepreneurship and students’ initiatives
  • Sustainable entrepreneurship and university support
  • Strategies for sustainability and educational leaders’ efforts
  • Transnational interaction and cooperation with stakeholders
  • Inclusiveness, innovativeness and interconnection in academic environment

Magdalena IORDACHE-PLATIS

is full professor at the University of Bucharest with over 30 years of experience, teaching Marketing, Micro and Macroeconomics, vice-rector for Quality Management, Social Responsibility and Relationship with Social Partners. She is an external reviewer on quality assurance for higher education at foreign quality assurance agencies and reviewer at different international journals. She was a member of the Thematic Peer Group of EUA Teaching & Learning Initiative (2017): Empowering students for their future professional life and civic engagement and mini-track chair at several editions of the European Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance – ACPI (2016, 2017, 2019, 2021). She was the country manager in the Horizon 2020 project called Students Achieving Valuable Energy Savings (SAVES 2) during 2018-2021. Under the CIVIS project (ERASMUS+) she is the institutional coordinator of the Open Lab group aiming to cooperate with different stakeholders in the process of identifying and addressing to local challenges. She is also the institutional representative in the University Industry Innovation Network (UIIN) and the institutional manager of the KA2 project: “Service-Learning: Intersectoral Collaboration Practices for the development of students´ soft skills and socially engaged universities”. Main areas of interest include: academic leadership and university rankings, civic engagement of academic community, university-industry cooperation, stakeholder commitment and student participation.

Dumitru MIRON

is a Full Professor at the Department of International Business and Economics. Having a university career of more than 40 years, he has as areas of professional and scientific concern: The Economics of European Union; European Business Environment (holds a Jean Monet course); International Trade and Trade Policies; Entrepreneurship and Business Development; Global Economic Governance. He has published 26 books as the sole author, coordinator or co-author, is author of over 55 scientific papers published in specialized journals in the country and abroad where the main challenges faced by the institutional environment business in Romania, Europe and other regions of the planet. He was project manager for 3 projects, member of implementation teams or expert in 12 other projects funded by the Structural and Cohesion Funds of the European Union. He is one of the members of „Team Europe„ Romania, in which he contributes to the promotion of the contingent problems with the European affairs in the Romanian society. Between 2005 and 2008, he served as Secretary of State for Higher Education and European Integration at the Ministry of National Education, where he represented Romania at the Bologna Follow-Up Group. He was vice-Dean of the Faculty of International Business and Economics during the period 1991-2000; vice-rector of the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest during the period 2000-2012; Dean of the Faculty of International Business and Economics in 2012-2016 and since 22nd of January 2020 was elected as President of the Bucharest University of Economic Studies Senate..

Vasileios NTOUROS

Dr. Vasileios Ntouros is a Scientific Fellow at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He holds a PhD in Physics, and his expertise lies in the Physics of the Built Environment. He has participated in several innovative EU-funded projects focusing on engaging the public with the projects’ outputs. Vasileios has also worked for university spin-off companies as a visiting researcher seconded from his institution to disseminate knowledge generated in universities to the wider public and thereby increase the impact of university research on society. He has acted as an advisor, supporting the actions and initiatives of other EU-funded projects, particularly in driving behavioral changes and civic involvement through campaigns, training, and serious games. In his most recent position, Vasileios is involved in developing sophisticated university training programs for professionals in the built environment to promote sustainable practices in the construction industries of Cyprus and Greece. Throughout his career, he has advocated for inclusive, innovative, and interconnected academic environments and has been a strong supporter of student initiatives and entrepreneurship. His main research topics include circular economy, sustainable development, and behavioral change, while his research interests also extend to civic engagement within the academic community, energy poverty, and climate change mitigation strategies.