The Human and Economical Geography Department was formerly (until 1990) the Economic Geography Department. A new title was adopted as it better responds to the preoccupations of the teaching staff and to current research directions. It gathers together specialists with complex preoccupations regarding the humanity's position and role in the geographical environment, in a tradition which can be traced back to the founder of Romanian geography, Professor Simion Mehedinţi, who played a remarkable role in the promotion of this constituent part of geography.
Since 1990, the department has enriched its teaching staff by co-opting young specialists from geographical research institutes and fresh graduates of this faculty. Research continues in directions established before 1990 (population geography, human settlements geography, economic geography etc.), to which new areas have been added: social geography, political geography, historical geography, cultural geography etc.
During the last ten years, the Human and Economic Geography Department has established, as a matter of necessity, a number of new degree programmes: Tourism Geography, the College of Tourism Activities, and a postgraduate studies module on the Modeling of the Urban and Rural Systems. These new orientations respond to current demands in the area of geography specialists and researchers, and represent an alignment with well-established patterns in European higher education.
The Human and Economic Geography Department was the very first department in the Faculty of Geography to initiate, develop and continue a complex relationship of academic collaboration with a foreign university. Since 1995, there has been a Romanian British Geographical Meeting, under the direct management of the department. This includes a variety of activities, such as staff and student exchanges, common practice, exchanges of publications and materials, and the publishing of volumes which contribute to raising the profile of Romanian geography abroad. The department has also initiated and developed academic relationships with universities in France, Germany, USA etc.
Members of the department are fully involved in the teaching and research activity of the faculty, organising and managing the Population, Human Settlements and Political Geography Research Centre founded in 1993, and the geography students' centre, the Human Geography Society, which publishes The Column Human Geography Journal collecting papers by students.
Research Directions:
- General and regional studies on population and settlements;
- The organisation of the geographical space;
- Studies on the reorganisation of settlement networks in Romania;
- Studies on settlement systems;
- Studies of regional development;
- The elaboration of tourism development models;
- Studies of social geography divided into characteristic samples.
Major contracts of the last two years:
- geographical differentiations in the dynamics of the contemporary Romanian village
Co-ordinator: Professor George ERDELI
2nd phase- the elaboration of the theoretical-methodological base regarding village dynamics. Testing in various geographical conditions of theoretical patterns based on characteristic samples
- geographical differentiations in the dynamics of the contemporary Romanian village
Co-ordinator: Professor George ERDELI
3rd phase, Geo-demographic tendencies of the contemporary Romanian village
- models of eco-tourism development in some Romanian areas
Co-ordinator: Professor George ERDELI
- systems of settlement
Co-ordinator: Professor Ioan IANOŞ
Financed by the World Bank
- The Republica-Faur Platform. P. U. Z. elements
Co-ordinator: Professor Ioan IANOŞ
Financed by the Institute of National Economy
- Semper Studium
Co-ordinator Professor George ERDELI
Financed by the World Bank.
