Investment: One billion euros in fundamental research

Investments in education and research are investments in a better future. The Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization, Bogdan Ivan, declared that in the period 2024-2026 investments of one billion euros in fundamental research are scheduled. Bogdan Ivan spoke about this at the annual conference "Higher Education in Romania, on the world map of education": "From the point of view of financial resources, we have opened or are preparing 14 large funding lines for what is fundamental research, but and technological transfer to the market totaling approximately one billion euros in multi-annual programs starting from 2024 to 2026". He specified that among the most important investments are those in centers of excellence, financed with 320 million euros, so that 24 centers of excellence will operate in Romania in fields ranging from the medical system to space, from medical engineering and genomics to space studies and quantum technologies or cloud computing. "All this precisely to create a context for the best young people in Romania and people with experience in research to develop here and create a direct impact on the market. These investments total approximately one billion euros", he Ivan stated. He explained that the research ecosystem means the more than 400 national research and development institutes, but also universities and private companies: "If we refer to the results, in the last five years the exports from the IT ecosystem and research and development of the companies from Romania increased 2.5 times and reached 6.6 billion euros. And today Romania can boast - and it is a common merit of Romanian society and especially Romanian teachers - of 200,000 IT&C specialists and with over 18,000 specialists in the research ecosystem, which places us in the 1st place in terms of share per thousand inhabitants in the European Union and the 6th place in the world.These figures represent a potential that we may not exploit as we could we do it".

The minister showed that, among the successes of the last year, is the creation of a law on research personnel, on the researcher's status, - in collaboration with the Council of Rectors, with the Romanian Academy and professional associations and structures, which was updated with principles from the European Charter of the Researcher and which was passed through the Parliament a week ago.

"We equated the rights of research staff with those of university teaching staff, but at the same time we updated the obligations of researchers in Romania, because when the Romanian state invests a sum of money in a certain field, it must know very clearly how they will return this money", said the Minister of Research. He highlighted Romania's most recent successes, including the inauguration at Babeş-Bolyai University of the most modern research center in medical biology that has advanced medical imaging capabilities in real time, which can reach up to 7 Tesla. Ivan also noted the impact of new technologies in the educational process.