RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES IN ROMANIA. IMPACT OF PUBLIC FUNDING IN SCIENTIFIC OUTPUTS.

Research infrastructures play a key role in development of scientific landscape of a country and impact on that specific research fields. Since 2007, Romania allocated specific amounts to build up or upgrade equipments, research infrastructures in various R&D fields, (National Plan for Research, Technological Development and Innovation 2007-2013) and large installations (by Governmental Decision). Additionally, important amounts were earmarked in the Sectoral Operational Program - Increase Economic Competitiveness - Priority Axis 2 - to build up up-to-date research facilities. This paper assess the impact of public funding to research infrastructures (including installations), funded from one of the three sources above in scientific outputs. The main outputs from each research infrastructure taken into consideration are: peer reviewed scientific articles, books, chapters of books, patents (if it is the case), etc. However, it is not intended to perform a qualitative assessment on research outputs but only a quantitative one. Based these results, it will be also seen if the priority research areas proposed in the National R&D Strategy (2014 - 2020) as well as the smart specialisation areas specified in the mentioned document match the most productive areas where these research infrastructures were built or upgraded. Recommendations to policy makers will be also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]