Strategic Direction

Free International University of Moldova

• FIUM mission “We came to offer an alternative study to all”

• Free International University of Moldova is the biggest and oldest private university in the Republic of Moldova. It was founded on October 16, 1992. Free International University of Moldova (FIUM) offers diploma of higher education, master and doctor degrees. It is a rather large university with eight faculties made up of 50 departments, which employs more than six hundred lecturers and additional staff, and has a 4200 student body comprised of local and foreign students from about 50 countries.

The university was founded during a period marked by the collapse of USSR and emergence of new independent countries, including the Republic of Moldova. Since those times, Moldova went through a long process of transformations and transition from a command (planned) to a free (market) economy. This affected FIUM in the sense that it has to activate in a permanently and rapidly changing external environment. This volatile environment in its turn impacted the university’s growth and profitability.

The first and most important element of the external instable environment is the political one. The reason for this is the immaturity of both local democracy and political class. Moldovian firms frequently suffer because of permanent uninspired and non-professional interference from government. This phenomenon began to happen more often after the communist party took over the power in Moldova.

Another major external force that influences the FIUM’s normal functioning is the economic element, especially because it is tightly interrelated with the political forces. Free International University has to operate in unstable economic surroundings which go through a long period of transition, slow growth, permanently changing economic legislation framework, unstable inflation and interest rates (eg. the inflation rates were: 15% in 2007, 10% in 2000...