Establishing a Laboratory of Cultural Heritage in Central Romania

How can a university from a Widening Country achieve R&D excellence faster and better?

The ELABCHROM project provides a twofold answer to this challenge.On the one hand, the solution we propose is not just a contingent “twinning” between various research institutions, but a long-term partnership, in the form of a university consortium that covers all branches of academic life.

In this respect, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu (LBUS - CO) has chosen as partners for ELABCHROM the University of Jyvaskyla (P1) and the University of Burgundy (P2), i.e., two of the best universities within the FORTHEM European University, in which LBUS was included in 2021.On the other hand, a viable solution is also to exploit the advantages of the regional ecosystem, which in the case of LBUS translates primarily through the status of ""cultural city/area"" of Sibiu.

This status, corroborated with the higher degree of development of SSH research directions in the LBUS, determined the choice of the main field of ELABCHROM.

Specifically, our project aims to establish, with the support of the universities from the FORTHEM Alliance, a laboratory of cultural heritage within LBUS, which will lead to an increase in the capacity to achieve excellence in research at the level of the institution, as well as to a closer connection between citizens and academia.According to ELABCHROM, LBUS will be able to bridge the gap that still separates it from other Member States universities through a series of institutional reforms (the establishment of the laboratory), organized mobilities and training of researchers and administrative staff, joint activities with P1 and P2 (common conferences, publications and applications), as well as through an exploratory research project, meant to explain Sibiu’s successful development by exploiting its cultural heritage, as well as to produce a model of regional development that can be transferred to other areas of the Widening Countries.