10 June 2026
The Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB) community in Cluj-Napoca gathered to examine current trends in science, with a specific focus on scientific publishing practices, on 8 June 2026 in the university’s Aula Magna. Members of the UBB community attended the event in a hybrid format, participating both in person and online.
The “Open Access” movement – anticipated in the 1990s, gaining momentum towards 2015 alongside the expansion of the internet, and subsequently accelerated by a combination of public policies and institutional or individual motivations – has led to the democratisation of knowledge. However, it has also given rise to troubling phenomena, particularly within the “Gold Open Access” framework (the author-pays model). These concerns include: (1) an exponential growth in publications without a commensurate increase in the number of researchers; (2) a decline and heightened variability in publication quality; and (3) a surge in retractions due to ethical or scientific integrity issues.
Data compiled by the UBB Scientific Council, presented by its president, Professor Radu Silaghi-Dumitrescu, revealed that among the world’s 50 most productive nations in 2025 by volume of publications, Romania ranks first for publishing under the “Gold Open Access” model, at 53%. By comparison, the US, the UK, and Germany published only 23-28% of their research under the “Gold Open Access” model in 2025. Focusing exclusively on the largest publisher specialising in “Gold Open Access,” Romania published 32% of its scientific papers there in 2025 – once again ranking first among the world’s 50 most productive nations. By contrast, such contributions account for less than 3% of the total publication output at major American universities.
UBB Vice-Rectors Professors Markó Bálint, Adrian Petrușel, and Szász Levente pointed out that these practices are not only deeply concerning for the quality of science, but can also distort institutional standing across international university rankings, thereby generating artificial impact and visibility. For example, although the majority of UBB’s academic staff specialise in the social sciences, humanities, and arts – fields where research is typically published as books or chapters rather than the journal articles indexed by rankings (which primarily favour the sciences and biomedical fields) – the university has consistently maintained its position at the forefront of Romanian higher education because “quality trumped quantity.” In other words, although we have a smaller proportion of academic staff whose fields naturally lead to ranking-relevant publications, we consistently achieved a higher volume of such publications in the past because the publishing process was more demanding, governed by rigorous quality filters. However, with the exponential growth in journal article output under this new paradigm, “quantity trumps quality.”
Furthermore, in a text submitted for the occasion – summarised by the director of the UBB Centre for International Cooperation, Professor Sergiu Mișcoiu – the President of Sorbonne University outlined her perspective and the reasons behind the institution’s withdrawal from certain global rankings. This move aligns with a broader trend of several European and American universities withdrawing from all or some rankings, either entirely or by specific fields (such as the Harvard Law and Medical Schools). Members of the UBB community – academic staff, researchers, and students – also shared their views and concerns, and proposed recommendations for the future.
Driven by these concerns, a clear self-correcting trend is emerging internationally and across Europe within the Open Access movement. This shift emphasises: (1) “Diamond Open Access” (an institution- or state-funded model); (2) “Green Open Access” (whereby authors freely self-archive a specific version of their paper post-publication); and (3) hybrid approaches that run alongside traditional publishing models, where publishers cover upfront costs and recoup them through subscription or business frameworks. Drawing on these international developments and the insights shared during the community debate, the University will champion these emerging models as a core component of its institutional strategy. Furthermore, in light of this debate, UBB will remain firmly committed to general institutional best practices and those specific to individual fields, safeguarding them against any distortions aimed at artificially inflating impact or visibility.
The Rector of UBB, Professor Daniel David, noted that, in his past capacity as a research advisor to various ministers, he proposed the introduction of university rankings (2005) and meta-rankings (2016) nationally, as they aligned perfectly with international best practices at the time. However, academic best practices are constantly evolving. Today, international best practices have moved away from these metric-driven evaluation systems, which have been overly compromised by the distortions of certain “Open Access” models. In this new climate, the UBB Rector has consistently advocated – including through various legislative acts during his tenure as Minister of Education and Research – for alignment with frameworks that place primary emphasis on scientific quality and integrity, such as CoARA, or comprehensive institutional evaluations like the HR Excellence in Research Award.
UBB will continue to monitor European and global trends, consistently aligning its policies with the highest academic benchmarks established by the prestigious networks to which it belongs – most notably The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities (https://www.the-guild.eu/) and the EUTOPIA European University Alliance (https://eutopia-university.eu/). Furthermore, as one of the country’s leading universities, UBB seeks through such analyses to sound an alarm for both the academic community and Romanian society, in order to strengthen scientific research and national development as a knowledge-based society.
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 445 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). Ever since its establishment, UBB has been one of the most prestigious and influential universities in Romania; 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.