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| Newsletter 8 November 2003 Download Archive |
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| NEWS & EVENTS | |
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| Attributes of the Region Innovation within the “region” Brief history Innovative activities have a good tradition in Romania throughout the decades with emphasis on the communist period when the innovation and research have been constituted within a vector of sustainable economic growth, on one hand being supported by a large number of research centers working at the level of important enterprises, as well as of the universities, and on the other hand having a satisfactory budgets for the development of the activities in a proper environment. A large group of these innovations and inventions made inside the research centers were applied within many strategically important enterprises from the upper-mentioned period in the country and even abroad. The Romanian and, implicitly, the North Eastern institutes have, also, obtained gold medals at the international events (Tokyo, Paris, etc) organized within R&D field of activity, through which the talents of the Romanian researchers came out into the open. This good situation in R&D sector has been, also, promoted by the fact that the economy of that period was a centralized one, in which the trades of goods and information (in our case, the technological transfer), between the main fields of activity were thoroughly checked and directed and also because the main national economic feature was aiming to a “self-sufficient society”. Unfortunately, after 1989, accompanying the switching from the centralized economy to the free market economy, the situation within the research sector has changed to worse, mainly, because lack of funds caused by the harsh economic situation through which Romania has passed since then and the low management capability of the innovative sector along with other causes derived from the upper-mentioned reasons. Existing situation The main internal features of the research – development system at this point, in the North Eastern Region - the R&D personnel has continuously dropped, following the exodus of specialists to other fields or abroad; - 80% of research is carried out in the public sector; - functional research is prevalent within R&D activities; - 73% of R&D units carry out technological research - the majority of industrial R&D activities are externalized, carried out mostly in research institutes (87%), rather than within enterprises (13%); - these research activities have a relatively low efficiency rate, as only 12% of results are actually applied in industry; - the process of transferring, disseminating, and capitalizing on RDI results in the economic sector is defficient, due to the fact that the necessary infrastructure is just being developed; - there is an unequal distribution of reasearch units; most part of the research activity is carried out in the Iasi area, where approximately 50% of units are amassed; Source : „ Romanian National Development Plan (2002-2005)„ Further, we present the characteristics of the economic environment, influencing the research field: 1. The economic activity contributes increasingly less funds to the state budget to be used for research, development and innovation activities: - the percentage of GDP earmarked for the research-development and innovation system has decreased in the period 1996-2000, in the context of a reduction in GDP itself. Years 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000*) % of GDP 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.4 Nota: *) Calculated on the basis of provisional GDP Source: Ministry of Education & Research 2. There is modest receptiveness to research achievements on the part of the economic sector, of economic agents. The little there is, is characterized by two aspects: - economic agents have the tendency to resort to imported equipment and technology, despite the fact that their performance level is similar and sometimes even inferior to Romanian products; - economic agents spend little on RDI activities, for a number of reasons: · insufficient financial resources at the disposal of economic agents. · economic agents are interested, almost exclusively, in manufacturing and selling existent products and services · resistence of firms to take on financial and trading risks involved by the R&D activity: · the absence of a competitive economic environment 3. Local authorities almost never resort to science in solving local development problems: - there is no partnership framework for a dialogue between the two sides. Source: „ Romanian National Development Plan (2002-2005)„ Even considering these harsh situation, the North-Eastern Region place itself on the second place (see the table below), after Bucharest in terms of the number of research centers, universities and commercial companies, (these institutions being included within the R&D field of activity). In the same time, also, from the object of activity and research and innovation centers point of view, the North-Eastern Region is very well placed (see the previous point). Distribution of R&D units, by Development Regions, in 2000 Development Regions Number of Units (%) Research Units Universities Medical Units Agricultural Research Units Economic Agents ROMANIA - TOTAL 601 100.0 272 49 10 87 180 of which in regions NORTH-EAST 70 11.6 16 10 - 17 24 SOUTH-EAST 31 10 10 3 - 13 5 SOUTH 57 9.0 15 5 - 10 27 SOUTH-WEST 36 5.6 9 2 - 11 14 WEST 46 6.8 16 7 - 9 14 NORTH-WEST 65 10.8 16 6 2 11 30 CENTRE 67 11.0 14 5 - 12 36 BUCHAREST-ILFOV 229 38.1 176 11 8 4 30 Under the Regional Profile and SWOT analysis and taking into account the main objective of the North East Region strategy “Raising the standard of living within the community and ensuring a sustainable development of the North East”, RDA NE, proposed within the NE Regional Development Plan (2002-2005), a special measure dedicated to support the R&D sector: “Research, technological transfer and informational society development”, a measure witch meet very well the general objective of SAIL project. This measure foreseen the followings: - creating and developing one stimulating frame for deployment activities of research, development, innovation in accord with the principles, the criterions and procedures used in European Union; - supporting of the development of Excellence Centres – nucleuses and networks of research at whom activity to touch a quality level recognised on the European level; - developing the infrastructure in the innovation field through creating and developing the industrial parks, innovation and business centres, technological transfer centres, development centres of the human resources in research and innovation; - incorporating in international circuit concerning the research activity and information society; - affiliation of the institutions and research societies from the region at the European institution in order to enlargement of the access at the international experience in this field; - achieving some agreement of collaboration with European and pan European institutes in research field through the agency of which to realize the improvement of the researchers from the region into countries with experience in this field; - creating one regional centre with county subsidiaries to supporting the implementation of the inventions, innovations and from regional development. In the same time, Romanian Government through the Ministry of Development and Prognosis is interested in promoting the innovation and technological transfer throughout the country. In this respect, starting this year several special programmes will be financed directly by the Romanian Government such as: - “Industrial Parks” whose main aim is the economic diversifying and encouraging the private investments in productive sectors through creating industrial and technological parks. - “Multifunctional Centres” whose aim is the substantial improvement of the business environment in regional context - “21’s Century Technology“ whose aim is supporting the economic companies which utilise necessary modern technologies in the restructuring and modernization process of the industry, according to the market globalisation, capital concentration and accelerating changes as a result of the technological and information development. We are confident this project will contribute to find solutions and pathways for encouraging the application of innovative strategies and conversion into a management operation. Other national programs under implementation: - National Programme of Research and Development – “Orizont 2000” Financing source: Ministry of Education and Research Objective: sustaining and developing of the existing research development potential in order to develop R&D sector in fields and directions of general interest and/or strategically importance for the economy and society - Grants Programme for Scientific Research Financing source: Ministry of Education and Research Objective: enlargement of existing patrimony, by stimulating research of excellence, as well as development of the human potential for and through research Higher Education Institutions: The North East Region has available ten prestigious state tertiary institutes, where 42,000 students are studying, in three university centres (Iasi, Bacau and Suceava). · Within the University Gh. Asachi Iasi there are the following faculties: - Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunication, www.etc.tuiasi.ro; the following profiles: telecommunications, applied electronics, fundamental electronics and mathematics; - Faculty of Textiles and Leather Engineering, www.tex.tuiasi.ro; the following profiles: textile and leather, economic engineering, chemical; - Faculty of Automatic Control and Computer Engineering, www.ace.tuiasi.ro; the following profiles: Automatic Control and Industrial Informatics, Computer Engineering; · University of Computer Science, www.infoiasi.ro; the following profiles: analysts, programmers, software/web engineers, architects · Stefan cel Mare University, the faculty of Electrical Engineering Suceava, www.eed.usv.ro; the following profiles: electrotechnics, computer science · University George Bacovia. – Bacau Key R+D Institutions - Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunication Gh. Asachi – Iasi - University of Computer Science – Iasi - Faculty of Automatic Control and Computer Engineering - Iasi - Faculty of Textiles and Leather Engineering – Iasi - Medical and Pharmacy University – Iasi; - A.I.Cuza University – Iasi - University George Bacovia – Bacau - University Bacau - Bacau - Faculty of Electrical Engineering - Suceava |
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