Intercultural Competence – a key competence for higher education

Abstract Intercultural competence is an increasingly debated subject, at least in foreign specialized literature, not in the national one, especially in the context of university education where most exchanges of experience take place between universities from various European countries and not only. The purpose of this article is to identify and clarify from a theoretical point of view the concept of intercultural competence and the importance of its formation at the level of university education. The article analyzes aspects and opinions regarding the term intercultural competence and the components that make up this competence. It also presents some of the development models of competence, which have the role of strengthening the characteristics of intercultural competence. The theoretical aspects analyzed regarding intercultural competence demonstrate the importance of this competence and the necessity of its training at the university level, which should arouse the interest of actors in the university system towards a thorough training of intercultural competence for their students and giving it special importance.