European funds for Romanian research
A look at EU initiatives aimed at supporting Romanian inventors and invention projects.
România Internațional, 04.04.2014, 13:58
Several Romanian universities and 5,600 researchers will benefit from contracts financed through European funds worth 300 million euros. On Thursday the government signed the contracts with the beneficiaries of the projects “Support for PhD candidates and postdoctoral research” and “The scholarship of the young researcher”. Other contracts signed were those with the beneficiaries of the research projects funded by the “Sectoral Operational Programme Increase of Economic Competitiveness” aimed at developing research and development infrastructure and at creating new infrastructures consisting of research labs and centers.
There are 35 such projects over a duration of 18 months. More than 3,700 PhD candidates and over 1,900 postdoctoral researchers will get funding under these programs. The monthly amount of the scholarship to be granted to a PhD candidate will be somewhere around 400 euros while those making postdoctoral research will receive 820 euros. Prime Minister Victor Ponta said that European funds earmarked for research and for supporting the activity of young researchers represents the best investment for the future.
Also on Thursday 14 young people who won prizes in international Olympiads signed the contract for the funding of the program “The scholarship of the young researcher” which amounts to a total of 15 thousand euros that will be granted over a period of 24 months. Ionut Budisteanu, a student in mathematics, a former IT Olympiad winner, inventor and winner, in 2013, of a grand prize at the Intel contest in the USA, says that such programmes encourage young people to study with responsibility.
“The program ‘The scholarship of the young researcher’ is trying to encourage students to learn, to focus on school, university, education, to no longer distribute flyers and sell stuff to make a living. It’s an important step, a good initiative which I hope will bear fruit”.
According to Minister Delegate for Higher Education, Scientific Research and Technological Development Mihnea Costoiu the Romanian research has not received the attention it deserved so far, these contracts being a good encouragement in this respect. Upon meeting with the members of the Steering Committee of the Foreign Investors Council, Minister Costoiu announced that the Romanian government would encourage companies to get involved in research by directly funding research activities. He added that a major challenge for Romania in the near future was to boost innovation in the private sector, to support the development of human resources, with focus on research and development in those sectors with growth potential.
