The research, development and innovation (RDI) system constitutes the core mechanism able to generate knowledge on our society. The level of scientific knowledge attained by any society has the potential to affect it markedly – from the implications regarding the living standard to its continuous transformation into a more advanced civilization. Being aware of this principle, the European Union has promoted the Lisbon Agenda, which aims to organize the European society as a “knowledge-based society and economy”.
If we consider Romania’s RDI output over the past two decades, it strikes unfortunately clear the lesser degree of relevant knowledge gained, as compared to many other European states, as well as the Romanian research system inability to reach the desiderates outlined by the Lisbon Agenda. Romania’s research has passed through different phases, from a scarce funding and obliviousness of true values and models – when the funds allotted for research were insufficient, and often reached groups with modest performance – to a lesser responsible funding – when funds were directed to a largely similar extent to research groups regardless of their scientific performance, thus mis-allotting public funds. These constitute a handful of main reasons that led to the current status-quo, in which RDI results have failed to generate cumulative and systematic knowledge capable to sustain a knowledge-based society and economy, thus negatively influencing the Romanian competitiveness in the international arena.
Although the need for a wind of change is obvious, the specific mechanism of implementation of such more-needed changes is to be devised by professionals from various research fields, constituting at its essence the National Research Council (CNCS). In our view, the most lucrative strategy in this regard must be built around a new vision followed by novel solutions, that need first and foremost answering to two basic questions: “where we are”, and then “what we wish to become”.
Where We Are
It is a fact of the matter that:
- No Romanian University ranks among the top 500 universities in the world (see the ARWU classification at http://www.arwu.org). This in turn does not only point to the lack of competitiveness of the Romanian universities in the international arena, but incurs negative consequences with respect to attracting foreign students and training the local human resources.
- Romania ranks among the last positions in Europe with respect to research performance, if one considers the international publications, patents and innovations.
In addition to these, it is unfortunately true that:
- The rate of European funds absorption through the FP7 programme (“Seventh Framework Programme“, http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html) is severely reduced, although Romania contributes significantly to the European community funds.
- No Romanian grant proposal has ever qualified and won in the competitions financed by the “European Research Council” (ERC), neither in the case of the “Advanced Research Grant“, nor in the case of the “Starting Research Grant“ program.
The roots of these consequences are intimately related to the lack of competitiveness of the Romanian research in the international arena, and they may be described comprehensively as follows:
- The international impact of Romania’s R&D output is small to none. Although Romania is present through relatively many published papers, they have a minor impact in the international community, and extremely few Romanian researchers have made it to highly acclaimed journals, such as Nature, Science, etc.
- The echoes of Romanian scientific publications coming from the international academic community are reduced. For that matter, taking into consideration the number of scientific citations per article, Romania is placed on the 15th position from 23 countries in Eastern Europe, according to Scimago source, for 1996-2009
(http://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?area=0&category=0®ion=Eastern+Europe&year=all&order=cd&min=0&min_type=it). It should be mentioned too, that a great deal of these citations are in fact self-citations, or originate from other Romanian authors, which is indicative of a partially ‘scientific isolation’ of Romanian research in the international community.
- There is a growing tendency In Romania to publish in journals which, although are present in the Web of Science, do not meet editorial standards of a high quality evaluation.
Where We Want to Reach
Given that Romania is the seventh country in the European Union with regard to the number of its inhabitants, a competitive RDI system would be expected to place it on at least the seventh position with regard to the scientific performance. This in fact represents one of desiderates of the CNCS funding programs, on the medium-run at least. In order to accomplish this, we must firstly ensure that the financial resources are directed to the most competitive research groups. This can be achieved by a rapid implementation of specific solutions and mechanisms similar to the set of rules of international good practice in science, and it represents in fact the main goal of CNCS on short-run.
Envisioned solutions
Taking into consideration all the above-mentioned, the new programs launched by CNCS are a part of the formal framework of the solution offered by this organism in order to attain two major objectives:
- To promote and support excellence and creativity in scientific research. Consequently, CNCS aims to provide generous support to the excellent centers and brilliant researchers in Romania, to pave the way of creating a critical, integrated mass which: (a) would change the current paradigms of practices and mechanisms in Romanian science, and (b) anchor us in the international research arena.
- To boost Romania’s attractiveness for the foreign researchers of the highest scientific quality. Consequently, CNCS plan to work in close cooperation with such foreign researchers, in order to assimilate and implement at a faster pace more efficient RDI mechanisms. The cooperation with such researchers will be achieved through attracting them as individual members within the launched calls, or by Romanian joint projects which would attract the research centers they belong to. Therefore, such calls will put extensive emphasis on the most brilliant researchers from the Romanian diaspora.
In order to assist the efficient and timely implementation of these two objectives, the CNCS will assume the following principles:
o The principle that scientific excellence is the only criterion of evaluating the submitted research proposals to CNCS, built on the model promoted by the “European Research Council” (ERC http://erc.europa.eu).
o The grants portability principle, according to which we favor the researcher and not the institution-oriented research, with the purpose of increasing the degree of responsibility and responsible involvement of the institution in which the research project is carried on, during project’s implementation.
o The principle of focusing the project evaluation both on the P.I. (principal investigator) and on the proposal itself, to achieve a more objective, relevant and balanced evaluation. Following the ERC model, the P.I. is sole responsible for organizing the research activities, as well as human and financial resources which are at his disposal.
o The principle of elevated exigency: taking into consideration the actual state of the RDI system in Romania, the CNCS programs assume an enhanced strictness with respect to funding, establishing and implementing the scientometric criteria, as well as the transparency that must accompany the implementation of each program phase, by respecting the specificity of each branch of science.
o The principle of balance between the scientometric analysis and the peer review analysis. This principle originates from our awareness regarding the limits of scientometric analysis, especially when is misused, and of the fact that a rigorous peer review process is often at least as efficient as a good scientometric analysis. This is why CNCS will strive for a fine-balanced unification between the scientometric analysis (in order to enhance the objectivity of the evaluation output) and the peer review process (in order to enhance the relevance of the evaluation output). This approach is in fact most recommended for a country like Romania, due to its relatively reduced pool of researchers, who know each other to a large extent, fact that poses the risk of biasing the peer review process.
o The principle of minimal eligibility criteria for each and every P.I., built mostly on the “Article Influence Score” – AIS. Unlike the impact factor, which takes into consideration the citations of an article irrespective of where they originate, the AIS gives seemingly a greater importance to the citations that originate from journals with major impact, as opposed to those coming from journals with a minor impact factor.
o The principle of the increased polarization towards the scientific production of highest quality. For example, the main authorship (e.g., either first or reprint authorship), publishing articles in journals indexed in the “Web of Science”, with high AIS, or publishing books with international visibility, constitute particular indicators that will be employed by CNCS in evaluating the scientific production. This aspect becomes of fundamental relevance, since only scientific production of the highest quality has the potential to subsequently far-reach an academic, economic, technological and/or cultural impact (for example, attracting students).
The principle of internationalizing the Romanian science. By admitting the contribution of science, in general, and socio-humanistic sciences, in particular, to the culture heritage of a nation, we believe that research activity must be conducted at high standards, and by following sets of good international practices. Consequently, socio-humanistic sciences will be encouraged to follow a dual approach, favoring publication of papers in both the Romanian language (in order to ensure a competitive research environment), and in foreign languages (in order to help connect the national groups with their international counterparts). According to this principle, we seek to implement in Romanian socio-humanistic sciences, the modern paradigms of international thinking in the field – objective which is by far not new, and has numerous examples of success in the history of Romanian science and culture.
Expected Results
Through its programs, CNCS will strive to forge new mentalities and behavioral practices. Consequently, CNCS expects a number of clear-cut results, well-thought, projected and anticipated per time units.
On the short-run, we expect that research funds from public money to be directly distributed to (1) researchers and groups of excellence in the country and (2) researchers from abroad, especially those from the Romanian diaspora; they will undertake their research in Romania or in cooperation with Romanian institutions, thus being able to (a) confer visibility and impact of Romanian research in the international science arena, and (b) create a culture of scientific creativity and productivity at those standards, that would enable us to become truly internationally competitive.
On the medium-run, we expect our measures and strategy to help create a critical mass of scientists that would bring genuine value to the Romanian RDI system, so that our country would rank among the first seven countries of the European Union
On the long-run, a competitive RDI system as we envision for today’s Romania, will help consolidate the pillars of a more advanced country, among which we name: (1) a culture of competitiveness based on knowledge and scientific research, (2) and increased standard of living (3) an increased economic competitiveness for Romania
We believe the Romanian research community shares the same vision as ours, and we should never forget that the burden of change must be implemented through working together, as a modern and powerful nation, in order to earn the national and international recognition and pride that our nation deserves.
National Research Council