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Short history

History of technical education in Iași, becoming then engineering education, interlaces with that of the University born in 1860 and has its source in the Faculty of Science (1864), in which the Chemistry Department has been firstly defined. In fact, the defining role of technical education is the consequence of the need to develop a national industry, goal that became more acute after the Independence War.

As the result of its great promoters’ initiatives, Moldova was destined to creating and developing the education on technical chemistry, which appeared in 1882 with the first chemistry laboratory designed by Petru Poni at the University of Iaşi. Anastasie Obregia joined to the efforts of Petru Poni, both creating the basis of the chemistry laboratories, which will be the germ of education on applied chemistry at Iași.

Over time, this direction will acquire more and more engineering valences, the introduction of the Technological Chemistry Department and its specific courses being only a matter of time. This demarche of the two pioneers, supported also by Dragomir Hurmuzescu, Rector of the University of Iaşi, led to the approval in principle of the establishment of Applied Chemistry specialization by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education in 1906, which will become in 1912 the Industrial Chemistry specialization, at the University of Iaşi.

Since 1912, the evolution of this education direction towards the specific education on chemical engineering and further to the birth (in 1937), growth and increase of the prestige of the faculty dedicated to the training of the chemical engineers has represent one of the priorities of the academic environment, being endorsed by eminent figures of science and education: Cristea Niculescu-Otin, Neculai Costăchescu, Constantin V. Gheorghiu, Petre Bogdan, Ilie Matei, Cristofor I. Simionescu, this pleiad being completed by our great teachers of the second millennium end and also contemporary.

The Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Protection is one of the most important schools in chemical engineering from Romania, with high quality teaching stall and many research teams.