Foreword

Romania’s eight regions have vastly different economies, demographics, and industrial structures, and large regional disparities in investment, productivity, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and employment, as well as citizen well-being – calling for a place-based approach to strategic planning. Innovation is a critical component of regional development overall, and strengthening innovation capacities can help to bridge regional disparities, not least given Romania’s fairly modest innovation performance. Better innovation outcomes depend on sufficient regional capacity to design and implement strategic planning for innovation and for the region overall. They also depend on effective regional structures dedicated to advancing innovation. The need to improve strategic planning capacity and better identify innovation support opportunities is particularly urgent as Romania’s Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) take on new responsibilities as regional Managing Authorities for European Union Cohesion Policy funds in the 2021-27 period.

This action was funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument and implemented by the OECD in co-operation with the Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM) of the European Commission. The OECD conducted the project with the Association of Regional Development Agencies of Romania (ROREG) and Romania’s RDAs to enhance capacities in strategic planning and in providing innovation support services. This project was designed to assess these two responsibilities concurrently, in order to help explore the synergies between regional planning and innovation support and to better support place-based regional development. The regional development and innovation challenges facing Romania’s RDAs and potential activities to overcome these were examined in three areas: strategic planning and performance measurement; finance and implementation; and communication and stakeholder engagement.

This report is a synthesis of the findings from several outputs over the course of the project. These include eight regional diagnostic profiles which reflect on each region’s main socio-economic challenges and regional development opportunities; eight Strategic Planning and Innovation Support (SPIS) roadmaps with concrete actions for the RDAs to build capacity in SPIS services; and a ‘train-the-trainer’ workshop that provided agency staff with new techniques to design and deliver capacity-building training within their own agencies.

This report was developed as part of the Programme of Work of the OECD’s Regional Development Policy Committee (RDPC), a leading international forum in the fields of regional, urban and rural development policy and multi-level governance, which is served by the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE). The RDPC emphasises the importance of multi-level governance and place-based approaches that are tailored to regional and local needs. The report was approved by the RDPC through written procedure on 7 November 2023 [CFE/RDPC(2023)/28].

╳
Legal and rights

This document, as well as any data and map included herein, are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. Extracts from publications may be subject to additional disclaimers, which are set out in the complete version of the publication, available at the link provided.

© OECD 2023

The use of this work, whether digital or print, is governed by the Terms and Conditions to be found at https://www.oecd.org/termsandconditions.