Abstract:

The role of the regional context and regional innovation systems have been rapidly adopted both in economic theory and in pragmatic political and economic decisions in recent decades. Based on the extensive research that converges on the fact that poor regions tend to trail behind, while most prosperous areas display a sustained growth, the European Union's regional policies support the allocation of substantial public resources aimed at mitigating patterns of "regional divergence". However, it is obvious that all these policies and decisions must be based on a careful knowledge of regional development frameworks and on the careful analysis and processing of reliable, relevant sets of indicators, both at national and regional level.

In Romania, for 2019 levels, the number of individuals involved in research activities per population is four times lower than EU average. What is more, the research and innovation activities have reached a level of almost 3% economic growth. But even so, Romania has only managed to allot 0.25% from the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) toward RDI (research, development, and innovation) activities and only 3 % (instead of the 6% European average) for education. What can be taken from these two important figures (0.25% and 3% respectively) is that from a policy perspective, even though requiring great implication, concern, attention and action, these two key sectors are not suitably funded and organized. As such, a lack of proper funding of educational and research sectors brings forth major drawbacks and decreases as regards the innovation output of cities, regions, and countries. Scoring low on a plethora of indicators and indexes, the year-to-year regional evolution of innovation signals showcases the differences that exist both within regions from the same country, but also between Romania as a whole, and various other countries.