☰ Tempus Phare - Impact and perspectives

1. Level of impact

1. on the process of graduates employment, offered a chance to know better the matching between their skills and the job market needs, and following it, developing future careers in accordance with abilities and competencies.
2. on the short-term, the partners and other parties involved in the project were directly benefited from the opening up of new communication channels, the opportunity for exchange of information and know-how as well as the opportunity to develop autonomous activities into a large network of collaboration between educational institution and partners from job market in lighting field.
3. many people involved in lighting applications, users, employees benefited by knowing multiple aspects of well designed and energy-efficient lighting systems.
4. on long-term, an old mentality is to be change and will be change by the accomplishment of the project and its continuing activity at the Technical University - UTCN Lighting Engineering Center.
5. by establishing a permanent collaboration with the lighting market and creating a mechanism of feed-back, the university is able to improve continuously its curricula.
6. the database with the lighting market data and with the graduates capabilities offers many reciprocal possibilities to make easier the matching process between graduates and employers.
7. the opportunity for employees to obtain a continuing education participating at the LEC professional activities.
8. acceleration of the integration of short undergraduate continuing education courses into a coherent educational system and in the consciousness of employees who may face to a change of their previous work-placement.
9. increased experience in co-ordination and well-running of international projects.

2. Dissemination of results

Dissemination of the achievements by the LEC Reviews, Info booklets, LEC Internet group and LEC Final Report made the project known to the university medium from Romania and abroad, to the lighting market and to the local authorities. The LEC Guide offer an extremely useful tool for engineering new lighting installations with a high energy-efficient approach. Some articles concerned with the project, its objectives and results were presented at the national lighting conferences and were published in newspapers and official journal of electrical engineers .

3. Recognition of the LEC activity and results

The very valuable activity performed by the all members of the CME consortium received a national and international recognition revealed by (1) the Honoured Diploma offered to Professor Dr. Florin POP by the Romanian National Illumination Committee; (2) the acceptance from many university professors and professionals from European lighting laboratories to join a proposal submitted to the World Bank for the further finance assistance of the UTCN - LEC activity; (3) the large participation of national and international lighting specialists with high scientific level of the articles on the first four issues of the Lighting Engineering review.

Many companies supported financially the modernization of the Electrical Installations and Lighting laboratory of the Department of Building Services of the Technical University - UTCN (RO), the location of the future Lighting Engineering Center - LEC - UTCN.

The Romanian National Illumination Committee offered to the Professor Dr. Florin POP and the Technical University - UTCN (RO) the invitation to organize the next National Lighting Conference on May 2000. For the first time in Cluj-Napoca, the conference activity will be held on the S.C. ELECTRICA S.A. premises.

Professor Florin POP was nominated as co-ordinator for a study group of CIE - Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage to evaluate Light, Vision and Colour courses in university grade electrical engineering for the further CIE Lighting Education Technical Report.

4. Perspectives for continuity

The LEC - Lighting Engineering Centre for consultancy and continuing education have to be transformed into a permanency in Romania, in its North - Western area. The University Senate Board approved on 25 April 2000 the creation of the Lighting Engineering Center - LEC - UTCN, affiliated to the Department of the Continuing Education and Distance Learning - DECID of the Technical University - UTCN (RO) and also to the national network National Center of Continuing Education and Open Distance Learning - CNECIDD.

The strong encouragement received by the part of the lighting specialists or university staff from Romania and abroad is an excellent support to look for many efforts to obtain a continuity for a certain higher lighting education form. All the costs needed will be provided by the university involved and by the lighting market sponsorship. There are real opportunities to develop new higher education forms in lighting engineering, as short postgraduate courses. The further one is scheduled for October - November 2000.

CIE Lighting Education (1983-1989) Technical Report (Publ. No. CIE 99) mentioned between its conclusions the following, strongly concerned with the objectives of the finalized project:

1. What hinders the development of good lighting? Good lighting is mainly hindered by economic factors. This is followed, as a reason, by unsuitable qualification - lack of education and, in some places, lack of means. Lack of demand (no demand for modern lighting, mainly because the possibilities and benefits of modern lighting are not known) also occurs frequently, which can be attributed to educational insufficiency.
2. What measure do you consider necessary for development of lighting design? Publication of good lighting solutions. General lighting education introduction for electrical engineers. Awarding prizes for good lighting design. Interest of communication media - newspapers, television - in lighting questions. Better education of architects. Organising lighting courses. Educational of good lighting teachers. Informing manufacturers and managers of the necessity of lighting. Illustration and criticism of bad lighting solutions. Extension of education - information about all users, primary and secondary education, education of skilled workers.

© Prof.dr. Florin Pop