CHALLENGES FOR THE ROMANIAN UNIVERSITIES IN THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

The present paper represents an analysis of the topical issues regarding universities world-wide and some approaches for the case of Romanian universities. The first section reviews the implications of universities within the knowledge economy in terms of their changing roles, opportunities, and shortcomings. The second section focuses on presenting the challenges for universities on different dimensions of the knowledge economy in order to understand what strategies to apply for ensuring their global adaptation and growth. We argue the relevance of this analysis throughout the idea that universities focused on entrepreneurship, technology and research have a dramatic impact on their economies, through the entrepreneurial ecosystem created in these universities, start-ups created by students, and spin-offs developed from university research. Within the third section, we present a series of strategies and models to be applied by universities which strive to become more entrepreneurial. Throughout the fourth section, we point out some directions for the case of how can Romanian universities improve their entrepreneurship capabilities.