Institutul de Istorie „George Barițiu”
Academia Română - Filiala Cluj-Napoca
istorie@academia-cj.ro
România, Cluj-Napoca, 400084
Str. M. Kogălniceanu nr. 12-14
The Department of Social Sciences and Humanities (DCSU) operates within the “George Bariţiu” Institute of History of the Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca Branch. It is—in terms of its origins, general orientation, and working style—the legitimate successor to several important research units, where remarkable figures of Romanian science and culture carried out their work. The institutional affiliation of the DCSU is thus marked by:
a) The Institute of Experimental, Comparative and Applied, founded in 1922 by Florian Ştefănescu-Goangă (1881-1958), a student of Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig (between 1908 and 1911) and author of prestigious works on emotions and feelings, and the effect of colours on affectivity. His doctoral thesis, “Experimentelle Untersuchungen zur Gefühlsbetonung der Farben” (Experimental Investigations into the Emotional Impact of Colours), was very successful, being published not only in Germany (1911 and 1964) but also in France (1932), the former USSR (1940), and the USA (1972).
b) The Philosophy Department of the Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca Branch, established in 1949, where two of the most representative Romanian thinkers worked: Lucian Blaga (1895-1961) and D. D. Roşca (1895-1980). The former completed his university studies in Vienna with a highly acclaimed doctorate in philosophy, after which he had a brilliant academic and cultural career at home and abroad, crowned in 1936 by his election as a member of the Romanian Academy. Lucian Blaga is the author of an original European-style philosophical system, structured around the idea of mystery and revelation, articulated in five essential parts: knowledge, culture, axiology, cosmology, and anthropology. D.D. Roșca, also a member of the Romanian Academy, a philosopher trained at the universities of Vienna and Paris, where he defended a famous doctoral thesis on the connection, unknown at the time, between Taine and Hegel, was an excellent translator, into Romanian and French, and, above all, the author of an absolutely remarkable essay, “Tragic Existence,” a lucid meditation, written in a clear, Cartesian style, on the enigmatic meaning of life.
c) The Psychology Department of the Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca Branch, established in 1964, represented by Professor Alexandru Roşca (1907-1996), author of highly regarded works on experimental psychology and researcher in the field of creativity.
d) The Psychology Department of the Institute of Pedagogical Sciences, founded in 1964, represented by the brilliant Professor Nicolae Mărgineanu (1905-1980), with highly specialized studies in Germany, France, England, and the USA, visiting professor at several German and American universities, author of essential works on personality psychology, psychometrics, and related fields: logic and philosophy.
e) The Sociology Group within the Social Sciences Centre of Cluj-Napoca, established in 1969, where Professor G. Em. Marica (1904-1982) worked, with notable results and reference works in the field of sociology of culture and social psychology.
f) The Legal Sciences Group within the Social Sciences Centre of Cluj-Napoca, represented by Professor Aurelian Ionaşcu (1903-1990), with doctoral studies in Paris and author of valuable works on civil law, Romanian law and industrial legislation.
Over the years, these research units have undergone changes in both their structure and names. In 1975, their successors were brought together under the name of the Centre for Social Sciences at Babeş-Bolyai University. From April 1990 to January 2002, they formed the Institute for Social and Human Research, a unit subordinate to the Romanian Academy. By Government Decision No. 3 of January 24, 2002, regarding the reorganisation and renaming of research units subordinate to the Romanian Academy, the Institute for Social and Human Research merged with the Institute of History in Cluj-Napoca under the new name of the “George Barițiu” Institute of History of the Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca Branch.
DCSU is headed by a deputy director and comprises the following research sectors: Philosophy, Psychology, and Educational Sciences, consisting of 9 researchers, respectively; Sociology, Legal Sciences, and Economics, with seven researchers. Out of the total of 17 employees, 14 hold the title of doctor in their field, 6 are researchers of the first and second degree (researchers I and II), positions equivalent to those of professor and associate professor, and 2 are young individuals under the age of 35.
The activity within DCSU is carried out based on research programs and projects approved by the Praesidium of the Romanian Academy. Occasionally, research contracts are also carried out with other beneficiaries.
The year 2020, for example, builds upon older projects and launches new ones, which, together, comprise the list of current accredited programs and projects.
Download the list of current accredited programs and projects:
Research plans and projects from the last five years can be consulted in the section reserved for them on the department’s website.
Among the DCSU programs and projects carried out after 1989, we mention here some of the most significant ones: Psycho-social dimensions of human resources in the transition period; Traditions and achievements in Romanian and universal philosophy and sociology; The legal regime of civil and commercial contracts; Mechanisms and styles of social adaptation in young people; Directions and concepts of modernity in philosophy and sociology; Problems and solutions of evaluation in the business world during the period of socio-economic transition; Identity frameworks and forms in the evolutionary path of juvenile personality; Paradigmatic alternatives in interwar Romanian sociology; Contributions of Cluj sociology; The evolution of critical thinking in modern Romanian thought; Money and prices in the contemporary business world; The legal regime of commercial freight transport in Romania; Identity transformations and attitudes towards changes in rural Transylvania; Methodology for compiling an evaluation grid for research institutes within the Romanian Academy; Copyright: current issues and perspectives.
A significant portion of the research results conducted at DCSU have been published in national and international publications edited by the department. The first own periodical publication – “Studia Napocensis” – appeared in 1976. It was followed, then, since 2003, by the Humanistic series of the Yearbook of the “George Barițiu” Institute of History, which has now reached volume XV, and, respectively, since 2013, by the International Journal of Humanistic Ideology, which has reached volume IX, a journal that benefits from prestigious collaborations of renowned personalities in the field of socio-human sciences from the country and abroad (France, Germany, England, the United States, Israel, India, etc.). The periodical publications of DCSU are listed in several international databases: CEEOL, EBSCO, and ERIH Plus.
The department also publishes two important collections that summarise research from the same research fields: Studies and Research in the Social and Human Sciences, which has reached its 31st volume, and Research in Psychology and Educational Sciences, whose last volume, the 6th, was published in 2019.
DCSU members participate annually in communication sessions, round tables, and autonomous panels at the Cluj Academic Days and organise an Annual Communication Session with a national and international character for researchers in the field of social sciences and humanities. They also regularly participate in numerous conferences organized both nationally and internationally (France, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Greece, Moldova, Macedonia, Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, India, etc.) thus managing to establish several national research networks (together with partners from the Universities of Bucharest, Timișoara, Iași, Galați, etc.) or international ones (together with partners from the Universities of Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Poitiers, Lyon 3, Jean Moulin, Tübingen, Eberhard Karls, Wuppertal, Chișinău, Budapest, Krakow, Jerusalem, New Delhi, etc.). In recent years, the main areas of research targeted by this type of international network have been: general philosophy, applied philosophy, philosophy and theology, phenomenology and psychoanalysis, philosophy of culture, and general sociology. Some of our colleagues have been or are accredited as associate researchers at foreign institutes (CRHIA – University of Poitiers, MCHA – Institut Catholique de Toulouse), have been visiting professors at foreign universities (University of Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Poitiers, Lyon 3, Jean Moulin, Paris XII, Créteil) or have been or are national (UEFISCDI) or international (AUF, Paris) experts. Most of them have collaborated or are collaborating with courses and seminars in the educational programs of universities in Romania (Babeș-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, UAD Cluj-Napoca, West University of Timișoara, Tibiscum University of Timișoara, etc.) or abroad (University of Poitiers, University of Paris XII).
Finally, the scientific activity of DCSU also includes supervising doctoral students or participating in doctoral committees in Romania or abroad, collaborating as members with the editorial boards of ISI-rated national or international publishers or journals – Studia Phaenomenologica, Journal for the Studies of Religions and Ideologies, Revue roumaine de philosophie – or other international databases – Studia, International Political Anthropology, etc. – as well as receiving national (including from the Romanian Academy) and international awards and distinctions.
Deputy Director Virgil Ciomoș
Psychology and Education Sciences Team
The Yearbook of the “George Bariţiu” Institute of History in Cluj-Napoca, Series Humanistica, was founded in 2003 as a publication of the Department of Social and Human Sciences of the Cluj-Napoca Institute.
This publication contains five permanent sections. The first of these, the Studies section, brings together theoretical and empirical materials from the fields of economics, law, philosophy, psychology, educational sciences, sociology, and anthropology. The other sections are: Opinions and Debates, Restitutions (including unpublished or lesser-known texts by authors in the respective fields), Reviews, Scientific Activity – Selective Repertory (which presents the annual activity of the Department’s researchers).
The yearbook is aimed at researchers, teachers, and other specialists in the field of social sciences and humanities, and is open to the publication of materials that fall within its sections.
Studies and articles are published in Romanian, as well as in the main international languages. All materials received by the editorial office are evaluated from a scientific point of view.
The Yearbook has been awarded a B rating by CNCSIS and is indexed in the international databases CEEOL, EBSCO and ULRICHSWEB.
ISSN 1584-4404