Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca (UBB) is among the 4 academic institutions in Romania that have been included in the most recent analysis of StatNano (https://statnano.com/aboutus), an international group collecting and analysing scientific contributions relevant to nanosciences/nanotechnologies, including standards and policies in the field.
In the most recent StatNano analysis (of 2020 for the year 2019) dedicated to academic institutions, in Romania, four institutions are visible (listed in alphabetical order): the Romanian Academy, Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca (UBB), the University of Bucharest and the Polytechnic University of Bucharest. UBB is first in the country and ranks important positions internationally in three (3) of the four indexes used for this analysis: (1) Quotations – #1 nationally and #498 internationally; (2) the Hirsch index (combining quantity and quality of publications) – #1 nationally and 335 internationally; (3) Number of quotations/publication – #1 nationally and 374 internationally. From the viewpoint of number of published articles, UBB is #3 nationally and # 537 internationally.
If we extrapolate the analysis to past years, considering the 2014-2019 period, of the four abovementioned national contributors that are also visible and impactful on an international level, UBB ranks #2 in the country for the number of quotations accumulated, #4 for the number of publications accumulated, and remains #1 in the country as a relative index of quality, each year, if we consider the number of quotations proportional to the number of articles, and the medium Hirsch index during the same period of time.
This academic direction has been and continues to be a hot topic for global science, as a priority in all public or private programmes. I’m glad that UBB is one of the national leaders, having an international visibility and impact in nanosciences/nanotechnologies. We have a reference institute dedicated to this specialisation – the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research in Bio-Nano Sciences – which, together with the Faculty of Physics and other connected sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, environment), renders UBB an important international stakeholder in this transformational field for the world. Moreover, some UBB scientists are among the 2% most quoted scientists in the world, in this field, thus confirming UBB’s international leadership. These are also the reasons why, together with the Cluj-Napoca Mayor’s Office, we thought of using this UBB international priority (together with similar other ones) to the benefit of the city/region, by proposing a new smart specialisation in the form of BioNano4Health (ranked #1 in the analysis of ADR-NV motivation letters), said the UBB rector, Prof. Daniel David.
Nanosciences/nanotechnologies have been, for many years, international priorities due to the major implications they have for the environment, health and industry; this direction will remain a fundamental priority for the new 2021-2027 framework programme – Horizon Europe.
