Ştefan cel Mare University of Suceava is a public university. The university went through several stages of development during Romania’s Communist era, and goes back still further into history due to its name, in honour of Stephen the Great, a Moldavian prince who ruled from 1457 to 1504.
Located in north-east Romania, close to the borders with Moldova and Ukraine, it can traces its roots back to 1963 as an Institute for Higher Education, Pedagogy and Technology, and now bills itself as "one of the fastest-rising universities in the Eastern European Region, providing higher education of high quality standards at a relatively low cost". It gained university status in 1990 by the Romanian government.
Aiming for "integration into the European Higher Education system in order to become a prestigious university at national and international level", it reckons to be "a reference pillar of the integrative approach: the university triangle, public administration and the community made up of economic and social actors".
Based on two campuses in Suceava, an hour by air from Bucharest, there are faculties of law and administration, physical education, food engineering, electrical engineering and computer science, mechanical engineering, history and geography, letters and communications, forestry, education and economics and public administration.
Valentin Popa, rector since 2012, served as minister for education for nine months in 2018, while students made an international impact by winning the European Universities Handball Championship in 2017.
The university has international agreements with universities in Algeria, China, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Indonesia, Japan, Morocco, Portugal, Russia, Senegal, Slovakia,Togo and the United Kingdom among many others. It is also a partner of the EUROSCI Network.
