Centre Education 2000+ (CEDU) was created in December 1999 as a spin-off of the Romanian Soros (Open Society) Foundation. Currently, the Centre is one of the most dynamic non-governmental organizations and an important player in the field of public policies and sustainability programs in Romania.

The mission of the Centre is to facilitate system-wide developments and innovations in current day Romanian education through embedding supporting sustainability in the curriculum, generating and sustaining educational change processes, models and mechanisms at school (i.e. grass-roots) and central levels. These evolutions are meant to align Romanian education to the European standards.

Areas of expertise:

• Institutional capacity building for educational organizations
• Human resource development in education
• Education policy analysis, development and implementation (realizing nation-wide impact studies – National Curriculum; Rural Education; advice for policy development – national and local, global and sector-wide; education policy implementation; think-tank organization in developing policies for education in disadvantaged/”education priority areas”; adult guidance and advising policies, policies for adult education)

Centre Education 2000+ has been carrying out educational projects all over Romania, in each and every one of its counties (see Rural Education Project); it also works on international projects implemented in partnership with organizations from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Republic of Moldova, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia as well as countries from South East Europe and Central Asia.

Over the last years, at national level, CEDU implemented programs in more than 6000 educational institutions and has trained approximately 25,000 teachers and trainers. Back in 1999-2000, CEDU implemented for the first time in Romania the modern concept and underlying practices of school-based educational change and education for disadvantaged groups. CEDU founded the first innovative school network in Romania, of more than 140 schools, in the framework of the “Education 2000+ Mega-Project” (financed by the Open Society Foundation – Romania). As well, back in 2006-2007 CEDU carried out a comprehensive study on “Educational policies in higher education” (financed by Soros Foundation Romania). The final study (Quality Assurance Policies in Romanian Higher Education) was published in 2007. Among the research projects carried out: Education for Sustainable Development Partnership Initiative (2010-2012); „School as it is” (The project developed micro ethnographic analyses on parents and their view on students and teacher profiles and interactions; 2009-2011); Study for piloting Child Development Evaluation Tool and the User’s Guide in Early Childhood Education, 2010-2011); Impact Study Concerning the Curriculum Reform in Romania (2001-2002); Advancing Participation and Representation of Ethnic Minority Groups in Education (2009-2011).

Currently CEDU is full member of the following international networks:

• Global Network of Curriculum Developers as a Community of Practice (IBE – UNESCO);
• Network of Education Policy Centres (NEPC-OSI);
• International Productive Learning Association.

Currently, CEDU has 14 staff members (10 of staff being directly connected with project management and implementation and 4 support administrative staff, including accountancy for the projects).

Role of CEDU in the project:

• Coordinate the mapping exercise in Romania and complete the template for data collection.
• Assist in the development of an online platform of resources as well as get familiarised and review the online tool.
• Write academic papers for HE and ESD networks and magazines.
• Translate project materials into the national language.
• Contribute to the bi-annual newsletters.
• Provide feedback to the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework.
• Contribute to the dissemination and exploitation of the project outputs, outcomes and future network activities.
• Participate and actively contribute to the discussions generated in regional and annual meetings, seminars and conference.

Operational and financial management:

• The project team will coordinate the above administrative and academic project activities.
• Financial administration will be handled by project team who will liaise internally with the institution’s finance department.