The Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization, Sebastian Burduja, stated, on Friday, at the University of Craiova, that if Romania is not be able to generate research, innovation to be exported to the rest of the world, then it will always be condemned to be a consumer market "and in fact to consume what others give us".
"Economic growth means innovation. In order to develop our country, we must generate innovation in our country, not always import other people's technologies. This is the reality. If we are not be able to generate from Romania research, innovation that we will export in the rest of the world, then we are condemned all the time to be a consumer market and in fact to consume what others give us", said Burduja at a workshop organized by the University of Craiova.
He specified that Romania currently spends about 0.2% of GDP on public research and about the same from private funds. "So we are going towards 0.4-05% of GDP. In the first place in the world is the state of Israel, which spends 5% of GDP (of course, Israel has a GDP about twice as high as Romania's GDP; they have about 480 billion USD, we are somewhere at 280 billion USD). I went there and asked them how they do it and they presented me with some simple data. With them, of that 5% of GDP, 90% is private money. And I believe that we must also aim for such a model, in which we encourage private companies, through tax facilities, by clarifying the regime, through various other programs, to invest in research and development", Sebastian Burduja said.
According to him, all the economic data show that "the Romanian cities have performed in an extraordinary way at the European level, especially the big cities. So the trend has been maintained, the tendency has been maintained and if you look at the last 10 years, the cities with the fastest growth rate in Europe in the top 10, 7 cities are from Romania, including Craiova. This happened because on on the one hand, you had investments and managed to coagulate economic development and, on the other hand, you certainly benefited from the support of European funds", says the minister of research, innovation and digitization.
The rector of the University of Craiova, Cezar Spinu, stated that multinationals and SMEs are not particularly concentrated in the region and there are numerous economic entities that do not produce under their own brand, and Romanian companies have not developed a budget allocated to research, development and innovation (RDI). "What stands out is the fact that not only Romanian companies hesitate to develop RDI activities and all those companies that associate them with financial risks, such as the non-guaranteed result, the specific psychology of researchers - researchers are a special class - and the fact that their employment involves financial expenses perennial regardless of the degree of charge in a company. Also, there is a lack of conviction that even the partial achievement of RDI objectives can lead to an increase in competitiveness and can produce benefits greater than the investment amounts", said Cezar Spinu.
He also stated that research is not materialized only through publications and contracts, but must be capitalized through applied measures or through the transfer of results to economic agents: technological transfer, knowledge transfer. "Thus, this HUB - INCESA - research infrastructure in applied sciences has been operating for over 10 years within the University of Craiova, and the main objective is to provide CDI for economic agents in the outsourcing regime, through bilateral contracts," Cezar Spinu told the workshop "Collaboration between the University of Craiova and partners from the economic and research environment in research, development, innovation projects", told Agerpres.
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