Babeş-Bolyai University is in many ways - even according to some international criteria - the largest and most comprehensive higher education institution in Romania. Founded in 1579-1581, according to the general rule of that time in Europe, as Collegium Major (the present name of Jesuit universities), it followed at first a Western model, having the power to award all three academic degrees which were then in use. In 1919, the Romanian University of Cluj was founded and in 1945 the Romanian authorities set up the "Bolyai Janos" Hungarian University. In 1959 the two universities merged under the name of the Universitatea Babeş-Bolyai - hereinafter UBB. Today UBB has become a model of multiculturalism and, from a confessional point of view, the only notable university in the world with four theological faculties, to which the Jewish studies are added, two with teaching in Romanian and two in Hungarian.
Multiculturalism is one of the core pillars of UBB. We provide education along three lines of study (Romanian, Hungarian,German) and also offer programmes and courses in other languages. The above three lines of study are autonomous, are organized at each level (department, faculty, university) and represented at all levels. UBB hosts Italian, Polish, Chinese, Russian, English, Austrian, Portuguese, Korean and other cultural centres, libraries and institutes. UBB offers a total of 253 accredited or temporary authorized undergraduate programmes: 153 in Romanian, 75 in Hungarian, 10 in German, 12 in English and three in French, and 265 accredited master programmes: 175 in Romanian, 40 in Hungarian, 37 in English, six German, six in French and one in Italian.
Another dimension of the UBB is the multi-confessionalism, in keeping with Transylvanian realities. Within UBB coexist the Faculties of Orthodox Theology, of Greek Catholic Theology, of Protestant Theology and of Roman Catholic Theology along with the the Institute for Hebrew and Jewish History.
UBB has 21 faculties organized in 91 departments and a significant number of research units. During the academic year 2014/2015, about 36000 students were enrolled for all the three study cycles.
UBB submitted itself to several international evaluations, namely: in 2000 - OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, in 2001 and 2012 - EUA Institutional Evaluation Programme, and in 2002 - The Salzburg Seminar. In 2009 and 2014 UBB underwent two institutional evaluations performed by Romanian Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (ARACIS). Following this evaluation, UBB was granted the maximum qualification namely “high degree of trust”. Consequent to the classification exercise conducted by the Ministry of National Education in 2011, UBB was ranked among the 12 advanced research and education universities in the country. From the 37 domains existing in UBB, 29 were ranked in the highest category – A.
