Essentials of University Strategy Development in the Field of Lifelong Learning

The process of strategy development reflects, in any organisation, the clarity of the purpose of the organisation’s mere existence. Although many organisations may decide ‘to go with the flow’, in the current economic context it is advisable that organisations, including higher education institutions, go through a thorough strategy development process. The lifelong learning approach brings a shift in the paradigm of education, and was considered to be the manner in which individuals get educated in the knowledge-based society. The most active players in the higher education market embraced this approach by developing lifelong learning strategies, either separated or incorporated in the overall university strategy. In this context, the study presents guidelines for the development of strategies in universities, and attempts to investigate to which extent three public universities representative for different regions of Romania have embraced the lifelong learning approach in their university strategies so far. The investigation uses the framework of the principles of university lifelong learning presented in the Universities‘ Charter on Lifelong Learning (2008).