Is There Population with Tertiary Education in Romania Still Interested in Research?

Abstract

In the past 25 years, in Romania, the intensity of R & D activities has declined significantly in most industries. This trend was driven primarily by the lower attention of the government policies of governments after 1990, resulting in particularly low share of research spending in GDP. This had a double negative impact. On one side was affected material basis of research, while on the other side salary levels of researchers along with education and health, remained at very low levels. Based on these considerations the paper examines the evolution of percentage of researchers in total employment in correlation with factors as: the percentage of population with tertiary educational attainment level, the percentage of total intramural R&D expenditure in GDP, the percentage of R&D labour costs in GDP in Romania, compared to Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Hungary and Poland. Unfortunately, in what concerns us, the answer is negative.