When you say Germany, you mean good cars. If you say Switzerland, you say quality watches. When you say Scotland, you think quality whisky. Or, in the case of France, to good wine. But what do you associate the image of Romania with?”, asked rhetorically a week ago Jean Valvis, the creator of several well-known brands on the market.

All the countries mentioned above invest heavily in research and development, knowing that research and development is an important engine of economic growth that drives innovation, invention and progress. Spending on research and development can lead to breakthroughs that can bring profit and welfare to consumers.

This seems insignificant for Romania, which in 2022 spent €17 per inhabitant per year, the lowest amount among EU countries, according to Eurostat data, confirmed by an analysis by the National Institute of Statistics. That is, a little more than one euro, in other words, how much would be tipped to the waiter after a not too fancy meal or to the taxi driver who will take you from the hotel to the train station.

The Bulgarians, who are ahead of us in the ranking, allocated almost twice as much as we did for research.

Below are the same costs, calculated as a share of GDP:

By investing in research, firms can gain a competitive advantage over their competitors, reduce costs, or increase marginal productivity.

Research and development often lead to new products or services. For example, without research and development, mobile phones or other similar devices might never have appeared. The internet and even the way we live today, booking and buying clothes online wouldn’t be possible if companies didn’t invest in research and development

What the statistics say:

• By the end of 2022, 49,052 employees worked in research and development

• By industry, the majority of employees (41.0%) worked in the higher education sector, (31.8%) in the business environment sector, (26.5%) in the public sector and (0.7 %) in the private non-commercial sector

• Scientific fields in which the largest number of employees worked in research and development are represented by engineering and technological sciences (50.4%) and natural and exact sciences (18.0%), and the least number of workers worked in the field of humanities (3.7%) .

• The main sources of funding for scientific research activities were sources from companies with a share (54.5%) and from state funds (including state funds of the university) – 30.9%

• Funds from abroad as a source of financing accounted for 12.3% of total research and development expenditures

• The total expenses incurred in 2022 for scientific research activities amounted to 6.4 billion lei, of which 5.8 billion lei (91.6%) were current expenses and 541.5 million lei (8.4%) were capital expenses expenses Out of the total amount of current costs, the largest specific weight is the cost of maintaining internal personnel

• The sources of funding for scientific research activities abroad were mostly directed to divisions of the business environment sector (49.2%), the higher education sector (28.1%)