Abstract:
The present research aims to analyze the national innovation systems in various European Member States in order to establish what could Romania do to develop a competitive Research & Development (R&D) system. The study is based on the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) which categorizes Romania as being a modest innovator, revealing the necessity of improving the situation of the Romanian R&D system. The main objective of the paper is to present a short history of the EU research programmes and the national innovation system of different European countries. The comparison will be made amongst countries situated on different positions in the EIS in order to reveal some treats of them enabling some good examples and streams for Romania, which occupies one of the latest positions. The research methodology consists of an exploratory study using secondary data analysis, collected from the European Union (EU), and The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) official documents. In the first part, document analysis was conducted in order to present the situation regarding the research and innovation system in four European countries. The countries were selected according to the four categories mentioned in the European Innovation Scoreboard. One example for each category of countries (leader, strong, moderate, and modest innovators) was chosen for analysis. In the second part of the study, a comparative analysis among these countries, using statistical indicators was conducted to observe the differences between leaders, strong, moderate, and modest innovators. Finally, the study ends with a series of conclusions and recommendations for Romania. The study revealed the need for Romania to improve various aspects regarding its R&D system, such as: set up incentives to increase technological transfers between the public and private sectors, create business and research clusters according to the American ‘Silicon Valley’ model, create an attractive special tax status for the innovative start-ups or adopt a favorable tax regime for patents.
