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Transport efficiency cannot be imagined outside of strategic management – an aspect to which universities, part of the „triple helix” model, pay close attention. As the complexity of public organizations has increased and mobility has become a key issue for their efficiency, several universities in Romania have developed their own fleets to meet the needs of moving people or delivering goods. Based on data collected through a series of interviews, this article proposes a comparative analysis of some aspects of the strategic management of the car fleets of the Babeș-Bolyai University, the West University of Timișoara and the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. The results indicate that the fleets tend to be more efficient the newer the vehicles are, i.e. not older than 10 years. The paper also underlines the fact that fleet efficiency can only be achieved through a regular analysis of the factors that generate additional costs and their elimination as part of a broader strategic management strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By using evaluations for the socio-economic and development programs, the European Union (EU) played a decisive role for the introduction of evaluation as a management tool in Romania, as well as in the other Member States. A proper management of the implementation of the EU programs has been a constant concern of the Romanian administration. Since its accession to the EU on January 1, 2007, Romania became responsible for administrating the evaluation of EU funded programs, under the Extended Decentralization Implementation System (EDIS). The paper is trying to examine how the experience gained throughout the independent evaluations of the pre-accession funds generated knowledge for learning and could further contribute to the development of the public policies evaluation practice in Romania. The hypothesis is that experience generated by independent evaluation use of pre-accession EU funds will contribute to further expansion of the evaluation practice to the national public policies. The methodology employed in this paper relies on empirical research of all relevant documents related to the both interim evaluations: Phare and Structural Instruments. The opinion of the key stakeholders on the evaluation practice was also considered, by applying a specific questionnaire regarding the evaluation use, combined with interviews of the key stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]