The University in the Community. The University's Contribution to Local and Regional Development by Providing Educational Services for Adults

A modern university assumes more and more, besides the main traditional functions: of research, the didactic function, and the cultural one, a significant role within the community to which it belongs. The university's role within the community can be assessed according to the services through which it contributes to the local and regional development. A university with an entrepreneurial spirit maintains a strong connection with its social and economic environment by offering trainings in which individuals, different from students, might be interested. This is necessary in order to meet these individuals’ need of continuous training and development in the new paradigm of a knowledge-based society. The university's community involvement presupposes the management of the available capital of competence and expertise in order to develop services oriented towards the economic environment, the public administration, the civil society.