In brief

  • The Ministry of Education has accredited two new doctoral fields: „Asistență socială”, Social Work, at Universitatea „Lucian Blaga” din Sibiu and „Muzică”, Music, at Universitatea din Craiova.
  • The two orders are twins: the same date, the same minister, the same legal basis and the same decision of the ARACIS Council, no. 224/H of 29 July 2026, which assessed both of them.
  • Accreditation gives the universities the right to run doctoral studies in those fields, and so to offer admission places and to award the title of doctor. The orders enter into force on publication, 31 August 2026.
Act: MEC Orders no. 5.076 and 5.078/2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 726 of 31 August 2026
In force from: 31 August 2026

Anyone who wants to do a doctorate now has two more options, at Sibiu and at Craiova. Orders of the Minister of Education and Research no. 5.076/2026 and no. 5.078/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 726 of 31 August 2026, accredit the doctoral field „Asistență socială”, Social Work, within Școala Doctorală de Științe Sociale, the doctoral school of social sciences at Universitatea „Lucian Blaga” din Sibiu, and the field „Muzică”, Music, within Școala Doctorală „Alexandru Piru” of the Faculty of Letters at Universitatea din Craiova, the University of Craiova. This is the second pair of doctoral accreditations in less than a week, after the two fields approved at Brașov and at Petroșani on 27 August.

Accrediting a doctoral field is not the same thing as accrediting the university. Each institution already holds the right to run doctoral studies, confirmed by earlier orders maintaining that accreditation, no. 5.498/2021 for Universitatea „Lucian Blaga” and no. 5.835/2021 for the University of Craiova. What is added now is the right to do so in one particular field, through one particular doctoral school.

The route is the same in both cases. The Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education assesses the file, the ARACIS Council adopts a decision, that decision is registered with the ministry, and the minister issues the order. Here the decision of the ARACIS Council is a single one, no. 224/H of 29 July 2026, registered with the Ministry of Education and Research under no. 614/E/DGIU of 31 July 2026, and it covers both fields.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is for applicants. From 31 August 2026, the two universities may organise doctoral admissions in the accredited fields, may enrol doctoral students and may run the procedure through to the award of the title. Until the orders were published, the ARACIS assessment existed but the right to run the programme did not.

The second effect is institutional. Both orders name the same two structures as responsible for carrying them out: the General Directorate for Higher Education within the ministry and the university that runs the studies. No new committees are set up and no further conditions are laid down, which means the accreditation takes effect immediately, without an intermediate step.

The third effect concerns the map of doctoral provision. At Sibiu, „Asistență socială” joins a doctoral school of social sciences that already exists, and at Craiova „Muzică” joins a doctoral school of the Faculty of Letters which bears the name of the literary critic Alexandru Piru. In both cases the new field settles into a structure that was already running, rather than into one created for it.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Before 31 August, the two universities could not run doctorates in these fields. They could in others, because their institutional accreditation to run doctoral studies had been maintained back in 2021, but each field is accredited separately, on the basis of an assessment of its own.

The legal basis has not changed, but it is worth saying what it is, because it explains why the procedure has three tiers. Article 30(1) and (3), Article 61 and Article 240(2) of Higher Education Law no. 199/2023 lay down the regime; Order of the Minister of Education no. 3.020/2024 approves the Framework Regulation on doctoral university studies; Order no. 3.651/2021 approves the assessment methodology and the systems of criteria, standards and performance indicators used in the assessment. ARACIS applies the methodology, the minister signs off the result.

A working pattern is visible as well. The two orders are built on the same template, carry the same date, 25 August 2026, the same signature and the same ARACIS decision. Their numbers, however, are not consecutive: 5.076 and 5.078. The order with the number in between went in another direction, which shows that accreditations are not signed in series but as the files come out of assessment.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • Candidates for a doctorate in social work and in music have new options, in two university centres outside Bucharest.
  • Accreditation follows an ARACIS assessment, with published criteria, standards and performance indicators, rather than a discretionary administrative decision.
  • The new fields settle into doctoral schools that are already running, so they do not require a structure to be built from scratch.
  • The orders enter into force on publication and lay down no further condition to be met, so the universities can start straight away.
  • Both files were dealt with in the same decision of the ARACIS Council, which means the same assessment session and the same criteria applied.

What remains a problem

  • Between the ARACIS decision, on 29 July, and the publication of the orders, on 31 August, 33 days went by, in a period when the universities were already preparing their admissions.
  • The orders say nothing about the number of places, about the doctoral supervisors available or about the first admissions round.
  • The text does not mention how long the accreditation lasts or when the next assessment falls, both of which follow only from the ARACIS methodology and not from the order.
  • ARACIS Decision no. 224/H is not published in the Official Gazette of Romania, so the reasoning behind the assessment stays outside the publicity given to the act.
  • There is no public, up-to-date list of all accredited doctoral fields; it can be reconstructed only by gathering orders published separately.

Practical advice

  1. If you are interested in a doctorate in social work at Sibiu or in music at Craiova, check the admissions calendar directly on the doctoral school’s website. The orders give the right to run the programme, but they set neither the places nor the dates.
  2. Ask the university for the list of doctoral supervisors holding habilitation in that field. Accrediting the field does not automatically mean there are supervisors available for the very next round.
  3. If you are putting a file together, note the exact name of the structure: Școala Doctorală de Științe Sociale at Sibiu and Școala Doctorală „Alexandru Piru” of the Faculty of Letters at Craiova. That is how they appear in the orders.
  4. To check the status of a doctoral programme, start from the order accrediting the field, not from the accreditation of the institution. They are two different things, and the second does not cover the first.
  5. If you are at a university preparing a similar file, follow the methodology in Order of the Minister of Education no. 3.651/2021 and the Framework Regulation in Order no. 3.020/2024. Those are the texts ARACIS applies in its assessment.

Frequently asked questions

What does accrediting a doctoral field mean?
The right of the university to run doctoral university studies in that field, through the doctoral school named in the order: to offer admission places, to enrol doctoral students and to run the procedure through to the award of the title of doctor.
From when does it apply?
From publication in the Official Gazette of Romania, that is from 31 August 2026. The orders do not set a later date of entry into force and do not make their effects conditional on any further formality.
Who assessed the files?
The Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. The ARACIS Council adopted Decision no. 224/H of 29 July 2026, registered with the Ministry of Education and Research under no. 614/E/DGIU of 31 July 2026, which covers both fields.
Were the universities allowed to run doctorates before?
Yes, but in other fields. Their institutional accreditation to run doctoral studies had been maintained by Order no. 5.498/2021 for Universitatea „Lucian Blaga” din Sibiu and by Order no. 5.835/2021 for the University of Craiova. Each new field is accredited separately.
How many admission places are there?
The orders do not say. The number of places, the fees and the admissions calendar are set by each university, within the enrolment figure approved annually by government decision.
How long does the accreditation last?
The orders lay down no period. The regime of periodic assessments follows from the methodology approved by Order of the Minister of Education no. 3.651/2021 and from the Framework Regulation on doctoral university studies, not from these two acts.
Why are there two separate orders, if the ARACIS decision is a single one?
Because accreditation is granted to the institution and to the field, and here there are two universities and two different fields. An ARACIS decision may cover several files assessed in the same session, but each accreditation gets its own administrative act.

Editorial analysis

These are two short acts, of three articles each, and the temptation is to treat them as formalities. They are not. For a master’s graduate who wants to do a doctorate in social work, the map of places in Romania actually changes on 31 August, and for Sibiu and Craiova the accreditation of a new field is the condition without which they can attract neither doctoral students nor funding for those programmes.

What emerges from putting the two orders side by side is how compressed the calendar is. The ARACIS Council decided on 29 July, the file reached the ministry on 31 July, the orders were signed on 25 August and published on 31 August. That is 33 days from the assessment decision to the act that produces effects, 25 of them between registration with the ministry and the signature. In an academic year that begins on 1 October, that leaves a month to organise admissions for a new field. It is not a flagrant administrative delay, but it is a period in which the university could neither announce nor promise anything.

The second observation concerns what does not get published. The order states that it was issued „luând în considerare”, taking into account, ARACIS Council Decision no. 224/H, but that decision does not appear in the Official Gazette of Romania and is not linked to anywhere. The reasons why a field was accredited, the scores, the assessors’ observations all stay outside the public act. For an applicant choosing between two doctoral schools, that is exactly the information that would matter.

Finally, the numbers. 5.076 and 5.078, with one order missing in between, published in the same edition, signed on the same day, on the basis of the same ARACIS decision. This is the second pair of the kind in five days, after the one of 27 August. The rhythm shows that the assessments from the summer session came out in a block, and that accreditations are published as they are signed rather than grouped together. The practical consequence for anyone following the field: there is no single moment at which you can look once and know the whole accredited doctoral provision.

What should be changed

  • Publication of the decisions of the ARACIS Council alongside the accreditation orders. They contain the reasoning behind the decision, and the order confines itself to invoking them. A link to the decision in the text of the order would cost one line and would make the whole procedure verifiable.
  • A public register of accredited doctoral fields, updated with each order. Today the map has to be reconstructed by gathering orders published separately, in different editions. A single list on the ministry’s website would solve the problem for applicants and universities alike.
  • A statement in the order of how long the accreditation lasts and when the next assessment falls. The regime follows from the methodology, but somebody reading the order has no way of knowing whether the accreditation runs for five years, for three or indefinitely.
  • A deadline for issuing the order once the ARACIS decision has been registered. The 25 days here are reasonable, but nothing guarantees them. A 30-day deadline would give universities a horizon for preparing admissions.
  • Grouped publication of the accreditations from one assessment session. If ARACIS decides in a single decision for several universities, the orders implementing it could appear in the same edition, with a common note. That would be easier to follow than scattered pairs a few days apart.

Original text of the legal act

The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.

The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania

Official Gazette of Romania no. 726 of 31 August 2026 16 pages PDF, 104 KB the act starts on page 15

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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.