Introduction

The historical land called Partium holds a special place among the many regions situated in the Carpathian Basin: its formation is related to the ever changing state and province borders. Today it is divided in three parts belonging to three different countries. These last borders that have existed for almost a hundred years now, made the life of people living here very uncomfortable by separating them from each other, and also separating some smaller settlements from their traditional centres and the centres from the periphery necessary for their evolution. In the last two decades the borders became more and more accessible, allowing people to renew their bonds - adapting also to hundred year old conditions. It will take many years, maybe decades, to enforce these bonds in order cover / influence? our lives, but there is a strong human factor which can catalyse the process through work.

For long centuries the different ethnicities have been coexisting here naturally, in peace, but the several conflicts that have arisen during the last 150 years left their mark on these relationships. The staff of three universities from this region, the University of Oradea, the University of Debrecen and the Partium Christian University joined their forces to - besides the secondary aim of giving an example to everyone on how to cooperate and think together - lead an investigation in order to identify the links uniting the population of the entire area and determining them to cooperate for different common aims, but also to point out the differences separating them.

The investigation included the area's institutions of higher education, these having an essential contribution, or we might even say a crucial role in the formation of Partium's future intellectuals. It is an important factor we consider that not only the borders within the Partium area, but also other borders in Europe became accessible, so that the students in this region could later work in other European regions, helping the economical or cultural development of other countries. Actually, this is the truth, even though the higher education institutions of Partium also benefit others than the people living here.

Our research regarding the students learning within the higher education system in the region - not only in the institutions taking part in this research - is based on the idea that these educational institutions - through their traditions and their students - are marked by some kind of specific "flavour". This regional point of view is perpetuated by their students throughout the region or outside it.

Keeping in mind the above idea and putting it in a European context the researchers formulated their hypotheses, refining them over and over during the research debate meetings. That is how the final research plan has evolved, providing us a unique chance to consider the social cohesion of higher education in many and very different areas.

Our research, part of the Higher Education for Social Cohesion Cooperative Research and Development in the Cross-border Area (HURO/0901/253/2.2.2.) cross-border project is based on a survey and on a number of questionnaires. During the survey we tried to assess the students' previous and future knowledge, their study plans, professional career, way of living, values while taking into account those factors related to family, residence, economy and cultural factors in a broader sense that might influence the elements in question.

The results will be published in four volumes, just like this first one, which processes only some of the main themes thus not being a comprehensive volume. The studies can be grouped into two major themes reflected by the volume's framework. The first six studies deal with the manner in which students become part of the higher education system and their progress within the institutions, while the second part and its five studies analyse the questions related to students' values.

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