The University of Bucharest recently received a EUR 750,000 prize from the French Academy- the Louis D. Award, for having supported the French language in Central and Eastern Europe by setting up a Regional Francophone Center for Advanced Social Studies. The project was created together with the Alliance Française in Romania. The prize will cover the creation of a new, similar center, but focusing on humane and social studies.

The principal of the University of Bucharest Mircea Dumitru received the award on behalf of the university. Dumitru went to Paris to receive the award and has also met several academy officials with whom he discussed a French – Romanian scientific partnership to create the francophone research center for humane and social sciences.

Other universities and centers that received this award in recent years are The Saint Joseph University in Beirut, The Alliance Française in Poland, The French University in Egypt, and the Bibliothèques Sans Frontières.

The Regional Francophone Center for Advanced Social Studies ( CeReFREA) aims to increase visibility for research in French of social sciences in Central and Eastern Europe. The center will be headquartered in Vila Noel, which currently hosts the cooperation department of the French Embassy to Bucharest.

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