Western Romania university aims for academic hub in Transylvania

The Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB) in Cluj-Napoca announced its intention to develop an academic hub in Transylvania, of national and pan-European relevance.

The announcement comes after the university failed to make it among the universities picked by the European Commission in the competition for the creation of the first 17 European pilot universities in international consortia, Edupedu.ro reported.

UBB said it wanted to develop the hub called InfoBioNano4Health.

“At this point, all the pan-European research structures are concentrated in the southern part of the country but Transylvania – and the other large regions of the country – might need such a structure,” UBB said, in reference to projects like the ELI-NP one of the Măgurele laser.

“The fragmentation of the Romanian academic and research environment leads to under-financed universities and programs, with few students, to unrealistic demands for small and underfunded universities and to the lack of use of the potential of the large universities in the country,” UBB said.

Academic hubs are essentials to raising Romania’s international profile, UBB argued, while saying it was open to academic and research partnerships with institutions from the country and from abroad.

This June, the European Commission announced the winning university consortia that will receive funding to establish the first 17 pilot European universities. Three Romanian universities are part of various consortia, namely the University of Bucharest, the National School of Political Sciences and Administration, and the Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest.

(Photo: Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai Facebook Page)