The rector of the Western University of Timisoara (UVT), Marilen Pirtea, says that the lack of research funding and the lack of a strategy at the national level to promote education in the country are the reasons why Romania no longer has a single university in the country. top of the best such institutions in the world.

“We wonder how we still had top universities, hoping for the best, not the fact that they are gone now. This is the result of the process of this system and the underfunding of the education system in Romania, which has obviously left its mark on productivity in the medium and long term,” Marilen Pirtea told HotNews.ro.

Many universities, few students

The rector of UVT also points out that universities in Romania have few students compared to universities abroad, which matters when different lists or rankings are compiled.

“I would say that in Romania the number of students and the population with higher education between the ages of 25 and 35 is too small compared to the average in Europe and other developed countries. But we have a very large number of universities in relation to the population we have (…). In these world competitions, all data is quantitative. A small number of students implies categories and a small number of teaching staff. And, in the end, the results are not taken for average, but collected qualitatively,” explained Marilen Pirtea.

He stated that in general, the rankings or charts that are produced “favor” fields such as engineering, medicine, biology and physics.

“Other universities in Romania, which were in the top until now, achieved this, let’s say, because of some specific things. For example, physics. There are several universities affiliated with the Atlas project in Geneva that have produced such applied research that has a major impact on physics and the pragmatic field. That’s why they were scored in such charts,” says Pirthea.

“Only in Romania there are still universities organized in this way”

The rector of UHT says that the “budget for scientific research is tiny,” and the dual subordination of this area to the Ministry of Science and Digitization, then to the Ministry of Education, “generates a certain stutter in the system.”

Marilen Pirtea supports the merger of universities and says that he, for example, in the past wanted to create a metropolitan university that would unite the four public universities of Timisoara.

“Yes, merger of universities, integration of several branches. Only in Romania there are still universities organized in this way. Every time I spoke in Timisoara for the Capital University, from the first mandate I was ready to put my mandate on the table, to merge four state universities, to create a capital university, and I am sure that they would be faces in such international charts and rankings,” says the rector .

Small universities cannot compete with large ones

Also, in the idea of ​​uniting some universities, Pirtea cited the example of UVT, which cooperates with the University of Turin. For comparison, the number of students at the University of Timisoara is five times smaller,

“We have 16,000 students and 670 teachers and researchers, but we work in an alliance with the University of Turin, which has 80,000 students and five times as many teachers and researchers. You understand that their results, which are five times more, can be compared with the results of the Western University in Timisoara… We have no way to compare. And there are many such examples,” says the rector.

We don’t know how to advertise ourselves

Marilene Pirtea states that the Ministry of Education, together with the universities, should create a strategy in this sense, so that each higher education institution clearly defines its goals.

“There is no formulated state policy that would suggest the promotion of Romanian education in such international rankings and charts. I do not think that all Romanian universities, up to 90, will be internationalized. Some of them have perhaps a regional, local character, with extremely important attributes, and then they do not necessarily have to develop in this area,” the Rector of UVT also stated to HotNews.ro.

About “Academic ranking of world universities”

This year, for the first time since 2017, no university from Romania appears in the “Academic Ranking of World Universities” (ARWU), compiled by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, writes edupedu.ro. In recent years (2020, 2021, 2022), only one such institution in Romania was in the top – Babes Bolyai University (UBB) from Cluj-Napoca.

In 2018 and 2019, the University of Bucharest (UB) was also present in the top, in its last part.

The study takes into account several criteria, with different indicators, according to which the rating is compiled:

• the number of graduates and employees of the university who received the Nobel or Fields Prize (an international prize awarded for achievements in mathematics);

• the number of scientific articles published in specialized journals;

• the number of researchers cited in specialized articles of these universities; productivity recorded “per capita”;
• quality of education.

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