Founded in 1960 by the Ministry of Education and Culture under the name of “The Pedagogical Institute of Targu-Mures” and functioning without interruption under different names and higher education structures, the “Petru Maior” University numbers over 40 years of existence.

The presence of this institution in Targu-Mures, together with the University of Medicine and Pharmacy and the University of Theatrical Art, has provided the old Transylvanian town (historically known under different names: Novum Forum Siculorum, Marosvasarhely), that particular nucleus of spiritual, scientific and cultural life that marks the cultural level of an entire urban community where cultural, ethnical and confessional interrelationships are extremely complex and with high spiritual potential.

The life of our institution was greatly influenced by the specific elements of different historical periods. As a direct participant in the life of the University during the last 25 years – out of which 10 as a Rector – I can appreciate, with understandable pride, that this academic community has achieved, without spectacular support from other universities, a quantitative and qualitative leap that makes it, in terms of its level of scientific and didactic competence, comparable with other, well established institutions.

Fully integrated in the restructuring process of Romanian education system, a process taking place in the last ten years, with various directions and goals, our University is building, with some inherent hesitations, its own specific institutional personality. In the process, we have always kept an observant eye on the national and international standards that a higher education offer presupposes.

Although forty years of existence is relatively little time if compared with the centuries of existence of other Romanian and European universities; it is, however, a period that cannot be neglected.

We are fully aware that the degree of adaptability to the scientific, didactic, and managerial requirements of a University is in direct connection with the qualities and level of commitment of those involved in academic activities, in a situation where the social-economic life has a character of relative normality and stability at both national and regional level.

The four thousand plus students, together with the one hundred full-time academics, wish to enter the third millenium with the feeling that the institution they belong to will fulfill its well-traced destiny to the benefit of Romanian society whose future largely depends upon the level of instruction and education of each individual as well as upon the level of the institutional culture achieved by universities and other instruction centres that face the responsibility of educating the generations to come, generations that will live in a world whose features are difficult to anticipate.