THE DOCTORAL STUDIES AT THE FACULTY OF GEOGRAPHY, „BABEŞ-BOLYAI” UNIVERSITY OF CLUJ-NAPOCA, BETWEEN 2005 AND 2012
GR. P. POP, N. CIANGĂ
Babeş-Bolyai University, Faculty of Geography, 400006, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, e-mails: grigor@geografie.ubbcluj.ro; cianga@geografie.ubbcluj.ro
ABSTRACT. – The Doctoral Studies at the Faculty of Geography, „Babeş-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca between 2005 and 2012. This study continues a series of studies which have been published since 1972, as it comes out from the bibliography mentioned at the end of the paper. Regarding this situation, without getting too much into details, it must be said that the first analyses, those published in Lucrări ştiinţifice (at Oradea), took into account the situation of the doctoral studies at national level. Afterwards, our attention focused only on the analysis of the doctoral activity in the field of Geography in the city crossed by Someşul Mic River. As for the present approach, the main motivation for performing this study was determined by the numerous changes that occurred in the doctoral activity in Romania and therefore also in the field of Geography at Cluj-Napoca. Such changes were: the setting up of the Institute of Doctoral Studies at the level of the university and the Doctoral School at the level of the faculty and the limitation of the doctoral period from „unlimited” before 1990 to six years in the next period and then (since 2005) to three years. The current approach has in view the general assessment of the doctoral activity at the Faculty of Geography within the „Babeş-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca between 2005 and 2012. The following basic characteristics are analysed: the introductive aspects, the manner of evolution of this activity, the PhD coordinators, the registration and defense of the PhD theses, the subjects and territorial structure etc. Regarding the contents of the study, in a very general synthesis, one may note the following. There are 12 university professors who coordinate PhD theses. They gradually achieved this status, starting from 1990 (Grigor P. Pop and Ioan Mac) and until 2009 (Claudia Popescu). The doctoral activity is presented by nominating the PhD candidates, the titles of their theses, the year of registration and the year of defense of the theses, for every PhD coordinator (table 1). The mentioned situation allows the presentation of a few general aspects, as follows: during the analyzed period, there were 186 enrolled PhD candidates and 141 doctoral theses defended. Their distribution among PhD coordinators was related to the coordinators’ period of activity and the highest numbers are outlined in table 2 and fig. 1. The analysis of the subjects of PhD theses reveals that the highest frequency among the 281 titles belongs to Geomorphology (15.7%), Tourism Geography (15.3%), Meteorology and Hydrology, Environmental Geography and Geographical Risks (each with 13.9%), Population and Settlements (11.7%), Regional Geography (10.7%) etc. The analysis of the territorial structure of doctoral theses indicates that 60.5% of the 281 PhD theses are focused on Transylvania, as expected.
Keywords: Geography, PhD studies, doctoral school, structure by subject, territorial structure.