Smart Diaspora 2025, UBB hosts event bringing together over 800 representatives from the national and international academic community
4 November, 10:00 am - 7 November, 8:00 pm
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29 October 2025
Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca (UBB) is hosting the sixth edition of the Romanian Scientific Diaspora – Smart Diapora 2025 conference between 4-7 November 2025, an event jointly organised with the member universities of the Cluj Universities Union (UUC) – the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, the Iuliu Hațieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, the Gheorghe Dima National Academy of Music, the University of Arts and Design – and the Romanian Academy, with the support of the Ministry of Education and Research and the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development, and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI), under the patronage of the Presidency of Romania.
Smart Diaspora 2025, a flagship event in international academic collaboration, brings together over 800 members of the academic, scientific, and research communities from around the world, who will attend 30 workshops organised by the universities of Cluj.
“To host Smart Diaspora 2025 in Cluj this year serves not only to highlight the status of our city as a leading academic centre, but also to showcase the enormous potential we have in terms of international scientific research and innovation networks. Our university took on the role of coordinator for the event in Cluj, which is a significant responsibility, but the event would certainly not have been fully accomplished without the participation of all UUC member universities and would definitely not have been possible without the support of the Ministry of Education and Research and UEFISCDI,” stated the rector of Babeș-Bolyai University, professor Adrian Petrușel, PhD.
The event kicks off on Tuesday, 4 November 2025, at 6 p.m., in the Auditorium Maximum room at Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, with the participation of central and local authorities, representatives of the academic, economic, and cultural communities, and features a piano concert performed by Ana Silvestru, and the traditional Romanian music ensemble Icoane conducted by professor Ioan Bocșa.
November 5 and 6 will be reserved for workshops and debates in separate sessions, hosted by the six member universities of the Cluj Universities Union, while the event final debates, conclusions, and closing ceremony are scheduled for Friday, 7 November 2025, at 10:00 a.m., at the new premises of the Gheorghe Dima National Academy of Music.
The schedule of events hosted by UBB is available here https://smartdiaspora2025.conference.ubbcluj.ro/, while the full conference program is available at: https://diaspora-stiintifica.ro/program2025.html.
Having reached its sixth edition, the Smart Diaspora event has brought together over 4,000 participants to date, highlighting the significant value Romania places on science, technology, and innovation for the development of a knowledge-based society, economic and social progress, and the role of the diaspora and international academic collaborations.
Tradition and Excellence with Culture-Science-Innovation since 1581
Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca (UBB) is the university with the most complex academic profile in the country (by its number of programmes and multicultural profile featuring three official academic languages: Romanian, Hungarian, and German), and with the oldest academic tradition in Romania (established 444 years ago – 1581), accounting for the largest academic community in the country (with a staff of more than 55,000 people, from 15 cities and 12 counties). Since its foundation, UBB has counted among the top universities in Romania, and for the past seven years it has been ranked first in the country in the University Metaranking, which indexes all major international university rankings. For several years now, UBB has consistently ranked among the top 5% of the world’s universities (out of approximately 30,000), with an advanced academic infrastructure (e.g. RDI units integrated into European networks, up-to-date teaching laboratories integrating virtual/augmented/mixed reality through the UBB-EON-XR Centre, etc.). Recently (2021), following the international QS STAR audit, UBB was officially ranked as the first world-class university (QS*****) in Romania, and in 2020 UBB was included in the GUILD, the organisation of the most prestigious European world-class/research-intensive universities, it was awarded the European HR Award for Excellence, and as of 2021/2022 it is a member of the EUTOPIA alliance of European universities.
