Romanian universities have 18 appearances in the Shanghai Ranking 2026 / Babeș-Bolyai University is the highest-ranked

Universities in Romania obtained 18 appearances in the 2026 edition of the Shanghai Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, published on Tuesday, September 15. The ranking evaluates the performance of institutions from approximately 2,000 universities, 96 countries, and 57 fields, based on indicators of research, citations, impact, and international collaboration.

The result represents a slight increase compared with 2025, when Romania had 15 appearances, but remains below the 2024 level, when Romanian universities appeared 22 times in the subject rankings.

The strongest representation is in Mathematics, where seven universities appear. Babeș-Bolyai University is the highest-ranked, in the 101–150 range. Romania also has entries in Earth Sciences, Atmospheric Science, Life Sciences, Medical Sciences, and Social Sciences. The Bucharest University of Economic Studies ranks in the 101–150 range in Economics, while Babeș-Bolyai University is in the 201–300 range in Psychology.

There are only two appearances in Engineering, while Romania is completely absent from fields such as Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Electrical Engineering, and Biological Sciences. The ranking is dominated by the United States and China, with more than 4,000 appearances each.

The evaluation primarily measures the strength of university research and not the quality of the teaching process.