Babeş-Bolyai University has positioned consecutively this year in the first place in the global ranking of Romanian universities – 2019 University Meta-Ranking (https://ad-astra.ro/2019/11/14/a-fost-finalizat-exercitiul-national-de-metaranking-universitar-2019/), followed by the University of Bucharest and the Politehnica University of Bucharest.
The ranking establishes the hierarchy of the Romanian universities according to the combined results of their individual performances, as reflected in the international academic rankings of universities.
“Ranking first, in the fourth consecutive year, in the meta-ranking positioning the faculties in the country, we celebrate in a dignified manner the 100 years of higher education in Romanian language in Cluj and we honor the 437 years since the founding of the Universitas Claudiopolitana in 1581,” said the rector of UBB, acad. professor Ioan-Aurel Pop, PhD.
Professor Daniel David, PhD, UBB vice-rector for research, competitiveness-excellence and scientific publications also pointed out: “I am happy to see that since 2016, in the fourth consecutive year, UBB has positioned first in the country and especially that from one year to another it has enhanced its performance as indicated by the international rankings of universities. This attracts academic/financial resources, national and international students, prestigious teachers/researchers and confirms the UBB status of international university of excellence in teaching and research (QS ****), granted following the QS audit.”
The University Meta-Ranking is a classification process of the Romanian universities initiated in 2016 by the Ministry of Education and Research through the High Level Experts Group and with an international certification of the methodology, being subsequently taken over and carried out annually by the Ad-Astra Association of Romanian Researchers (https://ad-astra.ro/). The meta-ranking combines the main international rankings of universities approved by IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence (http://ireg-observatory.org/en/inventory-international-rankings/ranking-profile)
According to this year’s report, the goal of the 2019 University Meta-Ranking is to identify which of the 54 public universities and 37 accredited private universities “have a minimum international visibility in the major rankings of universities, being present in at least one ranking included in the analysis, and what is their relative impact in the international academic area (through their meta-ranking score)”.
As the number of universities included annually in the University Meta-Ranking has increased from 20 in 2016, to 23 in 2017, to 26 in 2018, reaching 30 in the ranking released for 2019, experts have also noticed an increase in impact and visibility of the Romanian universities in an international context.
As the report accompanying this year’s ranking shows, “the total score of the Romanian universities in the meta-ranking was 78 in 2016, 90 in 2017, 99 in 2018, and currently it is 139. There is a clear steady, global progress in the visibility and impact of the Romanian universities in the international academic area, starting with 2016. The impact growth (of the total score) is due both to an increase in the number of Romanian universities in the international rankings (sometimes due to the increase of the number of metrics impacting the ranking), and to a better performance in the international rankings of the leading universities in the meta-ranking.”
