Supporting Innovation in Romania's

Catching-Up Regions

North-West Romania

Why are we supporting technology transfer in Romania?

Romania has invested in research infrastructure but with limited spillovers in the economy
Researchers and TTOs unclear on whether it is permissible to create companies and to conduct commercialization activities based on publicly funded research
Lack of clarity of applicability of state aid regulations for the use of research infrastructure and the lack of clear guidelines on monitoring the limits of use
Universities need to abide by the Romanian procurement law and in addition have an added layer of bureaucracy for even small amounts of purchases
Low level of technology readiness of the research pipeline
Research institutions in the NE and NW regions had research potential, but at early Technology Readiness Levels (TRL)
Limited knowledge and capacity of intermediaries to perform their technology transfer functions
Actors in the regional innovation ecosystem, such as TTOs and offices with similar functions, lacked a broad understanding of the basic concepts and functions related to technology transfer

Why are we supporting technology transfer at the regional level?

There will be big investments in innovation in the next programming period at the regional level and through WBG TA we are:

Testing the effectiveness of such regional programs

Increasing the pipeline of innovative projects

Learning what can be scaled up and what can be specialized at the regional level

Increasing the capacity of the regional ecosystems to collaborate, absorb and utilize investments in R&D

Innovate and adapt

The European Commission, through the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO), has concluded a technical assistance agreement with the World Bank to increase the competitiveness of Romania's 8 development regions.

The World Bank project entitled “Supporting Innovation in Romanian Catching Up Regions” aims to develop the institutional capacity of RDAs to develop and implement regional programs to support entrepreneurship and innovation, based on good practices at the international level.

Through the project, the World Bank will support RDAs for a period of a couple of years (2018 – 2020 and now 2021), by piloting 4 entrepreneurship and innovation programs for companies and research and development institutions.

WBG TA program’s objective is to build capacity within regional and central authorities to support innovation. The programs proposed under this activity target the regions’ knowledge providers (researchers and PROs), with the aim to

develop the institutional capacity of RDAs to develop and implement such programs,
test the effectiveness of such programs in Romania and
develop the portfolio of innovative projects, including research projects in their infancy , but also mature projects that already have the potential to be exploited in the market.
creating conducive framework conditions and incentive structures for collaboration and technology transfer.
bringing them together with those that ought to demand or benefit from their services—that is, enterprises and entrepreneurs.