University of Bucharest, National Champion in Graduate Employability

UBB Tops the British QS Ranking in Romania

Babeş-Bolyai University (UBB) in Cluj-Napoca is ranked first in Romania and 15th in Eastern Europe in the British QS university ranking. According to a university statement: "UBB - ranked 1st in Romania, 15th in Eastern Europe, and 260th in Europe, in the latest and most widely used international university ranking, the British QS ranking. Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca (UBB) ranks first in the country, 15th in Eastern Europe, and 260th in Europe (among the top 38% of 690 universities included from 46 countries), according to the British QS university ranking, released on Wednesday, September 20, 2023 (QS World University Rankings: Europe - https://www.topuniversities.com/europe-university-rankings)". The QS ranking is the most widely used university ranking, bringing together complex indicators of education, research-development-innovation, and society relationships, including employability, internationalization, and sustainability. The eligible European countries in this ranking are the 46 member states of the Council of Europe, with four of them having no university included in this ranking. UBB Rector, Prof. Dr. Daniel David, stated: "I am certainly pleased with this achievement! But, as I have said before, we should not mourn the fact that Romania is no longer represented in the Shanghai ranking, but rather, we should learn from it to do what is necessary for the Romanian academic environment. This achievement does not cancel but rather emphasizes the need to rethink the architecture of the Romanian academic environment and the funding of academic excellence if we want to grow or at least remain at this level and in this ranking. Rankings are useful informative initiatives but do not fully reflect the complexity of a university, and according to the recommendations of the European Commission through COARA, they should only be seen in this logic. In addition, fluctuations in various rankings - e.g., presence, absence, different positions/rankings - mostly due to subtle differences in classification criteria, are corrected through metarankings, and UBB has the best performance in this regard in its history." According to the cited source, in the "University Metaranking" (first published in 2016 for 2016 by the Ministry of Education and subsequently, with the same methodology, by other academic organizations), which brings together 9 major international university rankings, UBB has consistently held the top position in the country and has steadily improved its performance from 2016 to 2022.