Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies





The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies (Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti, or ASE, in Romanian) is the oldest university of economics and business studies in Romania. It was founded in April 6, 1913 in Bucharest, by the royal decree of Carol I of Romania, under the name Academy of High Commercial and Industrial Studies. Since 1967 it is known as the Academy of Economic Studies and has become one of the largest higher education institutes in both Romania and South-Eastern Europe.

Institution
The Academy has 47093 students, of which 35173 study at undergraduate level, 7792 are on graduate level studies and 2235 are enrolled in doctoral programmes. It is one of the most popular universities in Romania, with a number of around 34,000 new applications each year (9% admission rate for State paid seats and 11% admission for fee-paid seats). Alongside the faculties in Bucharest, a number of Territorial Centers (Centre teritoriale) function in other cities: Alexandria, Brăila, Buzău, Covasna, Câmpia Turzii, Curtea de Argeş, Deva, Ialomiţa, Mediaş, Piatra Neamţ, Slatina, Târgovişte, Tulcea and Vaslui.

The Academy has positioned itself as a research institution, hosting 13 centers of research acknowledged and endorsed by the National Council of Scientific Research in Higher Education. A notable presence inside ASE is the Business Information Technology department (Informatică Economică) which is an entity that promotes an educational philosophy based on combining economics and software development as a way of creating experts suitable for the Information Age.

Format and length of studies
In the 70's and 80's Masters degrees in Economics were awarded to full-time students after 4 years of study, except for the Faculty of 'Cibernetics and Informatics', which required one additional year. After 1990, Undergraduate studies at the Academy of Economic Studies end with a Bachelor's degree in Economics, students acquiring a specialization according to the department where they are enrolled. Up to 2005, undergraduate studies at the Academy of Economic Studies consisted of a four-year cycle. Master studies would continue for one more year, and doctoral programmed would normally be three years long. Since 2005 however, the Academy has adopted the Bologna declaration and undergraduate studies are now three-year long, followed by 2-year Master programmes. In this format, undergraduate studies finalize with a total of 180 credits, graduate programmes require a completion of 120 credits. The PhD programmes remain with a length of minimum three years.

Faculties
There are eleven faculties:
 * AMP - Administratie si Management Public (Administration and Public Management)
 * CIG - Facultatea de Contabilitate si Informatica de Gestiune (Accounting and Management Information Systems)
 * COM - Comert (Commerce)
 * CSIE - Cibernetică, Statistică şi Informatică Economică (Economic Cybernetics, Statistics and Informatics)
 * EAM - Economia Agroalimentară şi a Mediului (Economics and Technology of Agriculture and Food Production)
 * ECO - Economie (Economics)
 * FABBV - Finanţe, Asigurări, Bănci şi Burse de Valori (Finance, Insurance, Banking and Stock Exchanges)
 * COM - Comert (Commerce)
 * FABIZ - Administrarea Afacerilor cu predare în limbi străine (Business Administration in Foreign Languages)
 * MAN - Management
 * MRK - Marketing
 * REI - Relaţii Economice Internaţionale (International Business and Economics)