In brief

  • Three orders of the Minister of Education and Research, signed on the same day and published in three different editions of the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), together build the administrative machinery through which public research money is managed.
  • Two new structures are set up inside the National Research Authority: an observatory that measures the results of the research system, and a central innovation unit, RoInovare, which will run programmes for companies. The second can be handed over, by agreement, to UEFISCDI.
  • Every IT platform on which the funding agencies launch competitions, evaluate projects and report results goes into an electronic register, after a procedure that can run beyond 135 days for a single platform.
Act: MEC Orders no. 5.170/2026, no. 5.171/2026 and no. 5.172/2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania no. 720, no. 721 and no. 722 of 28 August 2026
In force from: 28 August 2026

On 27 August the Minister of Education and Research signed three orders which, read one by one, look like three matters of internal housekeeping, and which, read together, shift the centre of gravity of the funding of Romanian research. Orders no. 5.170, no. 5.171 and no. 5.172 of 2026 implement Law no. 144/2026 on the digitalisation and streamlining of activity in research, development and innovation, and one of the structures they create is given the express task of monitoring the reforms under component C9 of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, which is precisely the programme that the law closing the Recovery Plan, published on the very same day, is bringing to an end.

The National Research Authority, abbreviated ANC, is the institution that administers the research programmes financed from the State budget. Its internal regulation on organisation and functioning, approved in May 2025, is the document that says what directorates it has, what each of them does and who answers for what. The first of the three orders amends it. The other two each approve a methodology: one on the innovation structures at the level of the agencies that hand out the money, the other on the IT platforms through which the money is handed out.

The three orders are addressed to the administration, not to researchers. None of them creates a direct obligation for an institute or for a university. What changes for them is where they find the information and how the programmes they draw their funding from are evaluated.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is the appearance of a permanent observatory. Order no. 5.170 inserts into the ANC regulation section 14, the Research, Development and Innovation Observatory Directorate, abbreviated DOCDI. It has 26 listed tasks: 11 general ones and 15 tied strictly to the reforms undertaken through the European policy support facility and through the Recovery Plan. Its role is to measure the performance of the national research system and to put data-based analyses at the disposal of decision-makers. The text expressly requires it to work independently in analytical and methodological terms, and its conclusions to rest exclusively on verifiable data and methodologies.

The second effect is that the observatory is given direct access to other people’s data. DOCDI has unmediated access to the IT solutions of the national research system, and its own IT infrastructure is built in partnership with UEFISCDI, the executive unit that funds higher education and research, under an agreement financed through ANC.

The third effect is the creation of RoInovare, the central innovation unit, through section 15 of the same regulation. It is an operational structure, not an analytical one: it implements programmes for partnerships between companies and research organisations, organises joint competitions with other ministries and runs seven types of pilot programme, among them innovation and patenting vouchers, co-financing for start-ups, innovative value chains and support for transforming public research institutes. Beneficiaries are evaluated and selected through committees or groups of independent external evaluators.

The fourth effect is that RoInovare can be moved out of ANC. The order provides that, through a partnership agreement, a delegation agreement or a collaboration protocol, ANC may delegate the organisation and functioning of RoInovare to UEFISCDI while keeping responsibility for it. UEFISCDI would then send ANC, within 30 days, the unit’s operating regulation, which is afterwards approved by ministerial order, once the president of ANC has given an opinion.

The fifth effect comes from Order no. 5.171. The agencies that hand out money for innovation may set up innovation and technology transfer units, offices or departments, by their own decision and with notice to ANC. The methodology imposes five cumulative minimum requirements for them to count as functional: a founding act or an approved operating regulation, a person designated to coordinate the work, a minimum operating budget, a multiannual activity plan and proof that they have space, people and materials.

The sixth effect is a fixed set of indicators for any innovation funding instrument. At least five are reported annually to the observatory: the contracting rate, the average time from the submission of the application to the signing of the contract, the absorption rate, the number and share of projects involving private companies, and the number of functioning partnerships between research organisations and businesses. On top of that, every active programme is subject to an impact evaluation at least once every two years, and the conclusions decide whether the programme continues, changes or stops.

The seventh effect comes from Order no. 5.172. All IT platforms used for launching competitions, evaluating proposals, contracting, reporting, monitoring results and monitoring the national strategy, that is six stages, must be entered in an electronic register administered by the State authority for research and development. The register has three sections and records, for each platform, the stages it serves, the status of its enrolment, its level of compliance and the history of the changes made to it.

The eighth effect is the enrolment procedure itself, with its long deadlines. The administrative check takes at most 15 days, remedying missing items 30 days, technical validation at most 45 days from the completion of the administrative check, and remedying the non-conformities found at validation a further 45 days at most, with one possible extension. Added up, that is more than 135 days for a single platform. Once enrolled, any technical change must be notified within 30 days, and the platform is re-assessed at least once every 24 months.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

The most concrete thing is that a structure disappears. Order no. 5.170 repeals Articles 81 and 82 of the ANC regulation and deletes from the whole of its text every reference to the PSF Research and Development Reform Implementation Unit. What that unit did, namely following the reforms undertaken through the European policy support facility, passes to the observatory, together with 15 tasks listed one by one.

Who holds the secretariat of two bodies has changed as well. Under the order, DOCDI provides the secretariat of the National Committee for Science, Technology and Innovation and that of the Commission for the evaluation of research organisations, set up under Law no. 25/2023 on the voluntary integration of Romanian research organisations into the European Research Area. These are administrative duties, but both of them place the observatory inside structures whose decisions it is later meant to analyse.

The third change is in the way innovation programmes are compared. Until now, each agency reported its activity against its own criteria. From now on there is a core of common indicators and an obligation to report annually to a single structure, which makes it possible, in principle, to compare two programmes run by different institutions.

Finally, where an applicant looks for information has changed. Law no. 144/2026 sets up a single electronic point of contact at ANC, and Order no. 5.170 gives the observatory the task of operating it and of creating a digital interface through which the data and results are accessible to all interested parties. Platforms enrolled in the register have to demonstrate, at technical validation, precisely that they integrate with this single point.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • A permanent structure appears whose explicit task is to measure the results of publicly funded research, with an obligation to work on verifiable data.
  • The minimum indicators are the same for every funding instrument, so two programmes run by different agencies become comparable.
  • An impact evaluation is carried out at least once every two years for each active programme, and its outcome decides whether the programme continues, is revised or stops.
  • The register of IT solutions requires every platform to prove interoperability, logging of operations and the ability to reconstruct in full the flow of a single operation.
  • Beneficiaries and applicants get one single electronic point of contact and a public interface for the observatory’s data, instead of searching across separate websites.
  • Beneficiaries of the RoInovare programmes are selected by independent external evaluators, not by the staff who administer the programme.

What remains a problem

  • None of the three orders sets a deadline by which existing platforms have to be enrolled in the register, even though a record is of use only once it is complete.
  • Setting up an innovation structure at a funding agency is optional, and the annual reporting obligation binds only those that set one up.
  • The enrolment procedure can run beyond 135 days, and the extension of the remedy period has no maximum duration written into the act.
  • The observatory is declared analytically and methodologically independent, but the same article also hands it any other task the management of the State authority may set.
  • The entity to which the running of RoInovare may be delegated is the same one that builds the IT infrastructure of the structure that evaluates the RoInovare programmes.
  • The three methodologies deal with the administration, and research organisations learn nothing from them about how the conditions under which they submit projects are changing.

Practical advice

  1. If you work in a funding agency, start by checking the five minimum requirements in Article 6 of the framework methodology before you notify ANC. Without a multiannual activity plan and a minimum operating budget, the file cannot get through.
  2. If you administer an IT platform used for project competitions, begin with the technical enrolment sheet and the declaration in Annex no. 3. They are the only two documents required at submission, and the rest of the procedure is triggered by them.
  3. Prepare the proof of machine-to-machine communication from the outset, that is a documented API or an equivalent mechanism. It is the criterion on which technical validation turns, and its absence leads to conditional compliance rather than to rejection.
  4. If you are an institute or a university waiting for new submission rules, bear in mind that these three orders do not contain them. The framework methodology for project competitions is announced as a task of the observatory, but it is not approved by them.
  5. Companies interested in innovation vouchers, in co-financing for start-ups or in partnership programmes with institutes should keep an eye on RoInovare, because that is where these instruments sit, with independent external evaluators.
  6. If your platform changes technically after enrolment, the notification deadline is 30 days, and a major change triggers a re-assessment regardless of the usual 24-month cycle.

Frequently asked questions

What is DOCDI, in short?
A permanent directorate within the National Research Authority, whose role is to monitor the performance of the national research, development and innovation system and to supply analyses on which policy can be built. It also takes over the monitoring of the reforms undertaken through the Recovery Plan, component C9, and through the European policy support facility.
What does RoInovare do and how does it differ from the observatory?
RoInovare runs programmes: partnerships between companies and research organisations, joint competitions with other ministries, innovation and patenting vouchers, co-financing for start-ups. The observatory does not hand out money, it measures. The order expressly requires them to work together, with RoInovare supplying the data.
Does every funding agency have to set up an innovation structure?
No. The text says the agencies „pot înființa”, may set up, such structures. The minimum requirements, the operationalisation procedure and the annual reporting obligation apply to those that do. The minimum performance indicators, however, are tied to the funding instrument, not to the existence of a structure.
Which IT platforms have to be entered in the register?
Those used by the State authority for research and development and by the funding agencies for launching competitions, evaluating proposals, contracting, reporting, monitoring project results and monitoring the national research strategy and the smart specialisation strategies.
How long does it take to enrol a platform?
The administrative check at most 15 days, remedying missing items 30 days, technical validation at most 45 days from the completion of the administrative check, and, if the result is conditional compliance, a further 45 days at most to remedy it, with one possible extension. More than 135 days in the worst case, with no total deadline written into the act.
Does anything change for a researcher submitting a project?
Not through these three orders. They reorganise the administration and the platforms. The indirect effect is that data on competitions, funding conditions, contracting and results should end up at a single electronic point of contact, and that programmes should be evaluated against the same indicators.

Errors and inconsistencies in the published text

  • Order no. 5.170/2026, Article 115^4 of the regulation, paragraph (1) against paragraph (6). Paragraph (1) says that the delegation of the RoInovare activities to UEFISCDI is done „prin acord de parteneriat/acord de delegare/protocol de colaborare sau altele asemenea”, through a partnership agreement, a delegation agreement, a collaboration protocol or the like, while paragraph (6) of the same article speaks of „delegarea de activități prin ordin de ministru”, the delegation of activities by ministerial order. The same act of delegation is identified, within a single article, by two different legal instruments. The consequence is not theoretical: the form of the act determines when the 30-day period starts running within which UEFISCDI has to send ANC the RoInovare regulation, and a partnership agreement and a ministerial order do not take effect on the same date.
  • Order no. 5.171/2026, Article 6(1) against Article 7(3) of the methodology. Article 6 says that making an innovation structure operational „este condiționată de îndeplinirea cumulativă” of five requirements, is conditional on their cumulative fulfilment, which ANC checks, under Article 7(2), within at most 30 working days. Article 7(3), however, says that the structure „se consideră operațională de la data aprobării deciziei de înființare sau a regulamentului de organizare și funcționare”, is considered operational from the date on which the founding decision or the operating regulation is approved, that is from an internal act of the agency, predating the check. The text does not provide for what happens if ANC finds the requirements are not met. A reader in good faith can reach two opposite conclusions: either the check conditions the operationalisation, or it produces no effect at all on a structure already considered operational.
  • Order no. 5.172/2026, Article 4(2)(c) against Article 8(2)(b) of the methodology. The register records the status of enrolment with three values, „în evaluare/activ/radiat”, under assessment, active or struck off. Technical validation, however, may end in „conformitate condiționată”, conditional compliance, in which case entry is made subject to remedy, while the status „activ” is expressly reserved for full compliance. A platform entered conditionally is no longer under assessment, is not active and is not struck off, so it cannot be given any of the three statuses the register provides for. For this category, the register does not allow anyone to establish whether the platform may be used in competitions and whether its data enter the monitoring process.

Editorial analysis

The three orders solve a real problem. Romania’s research funding system ran for years without a structure to measure what comes out of the money, and the reforms undertaken through the Recovery Plan were followed by a unit created for a project with an end date. Moving that task into a permanent directorate, with an obligation to work on verifiable data and with direct access to the agencies’ platforms, is the opposite of a formal gesture. In the same way, a set of five identical indicators for every funding instrument is worth more, in practice, than ten pages of principles.

What does not show when the orders are read one at a time appears when three paragraphs sitting in two different acts are laid on top of each other. UEFISCDI builds the observatory’s IT infrastructure, under Article 115^1(6). The same UEFISCDI may receive, by delegation, the organisation and functioning of RoInovare, under Article 115^4(1). And the observatory is the body that, under Article 115^3(3)(f), monitors and evaluates the RoInovare programmes. The result, if the delegation happens, is that one and the same entity runs the programmes and builds the instrument by which they are measured. Nothing in the three orders forbids this and nothing provides for any separation, even though for project evaluation it was thought necessary to require independent external evaluators in so many words.

The second observation concerns the arithmetic of the deadlines. Enrolling a platform adds up to 15 days of administrative checking, 30 days for remedies, 45 days of technical validation and a further 45 days to remedy non-conformities, with one possible extension whose length is not limited. More than 135 days for one platform, and the register has to gather every platform in the system. At the same time, none of the three orders says by when the files have to be submitted. Every deadline is placed on the administration that checks, none on the one that submits, even though the date on which the register becomes useful depends exclusively on the second.

The third comes from comparing what is demanded with who is bound. The framework methodology lists requirements, indicators and reports, but Article 4(1) says that funding agencies „pot înființa”, may set up, innovation structures. An agency that sets up nothing has no annual reporting obligation under Article 9 and does not enter the operationalisation procedure. As it stands, the framework methodology applies only to those who choose to come under it.

The fourth concerns the addressee. Law no. 144/2026 is presented as a law on digitalisation and on encouraging investment in research, and the three orders that implement it contain no obligation and no new right for an institute, a university or a company submitting a project. They are acts organising the administration. That is not a reproach in itself, because the machinery has to be built before it produces anything, but it does mean that the effect on the researcher will only become visible in the framework methodology for project competitions, which Order no. 5.170 announces as a task of the observatory, without a deadline and without any content.

What should be changed

  • A deadline by which existing platforms are enrolled in the register. Without one, the register fills up at the pace of each agency, and the observatory works on partial data about a system it is supposed to measure in full.
  • A rule separating the running of programmes from the building of the measuring instruments. If RoInovare is delegated to UEFISCDI, the entity that runs the programmes should not also be the one that builds the infrastructure of the structure that evaluates them.
  • A fourth status in the register, for conditional entry. The three current values do not cover the case provided for by the validation procedure itself, and users of the register cannot know what may be done with a platform entered subject to remedy.
  • A maximum length for the extension of the remedy period. A 45-day deadline that can be extended without any written limit is no longer a deadline, and striking off the register, which depends on missing it, becomes impossible to apply predictably.
  • Clarification of the effect of the ANC check on innovation structures. If the check conditions operationalisation, the text should tie one to the other; if it does not, the five minimum requirements remain a list without consequence.
  • A public timetable for the framework methodology on project competitions. It is the only document in the whole package that would change anything for someone submitting a project, and the order announces it as a task, with no deadline.

Original text of the legal act

The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.

The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania

Official Gazette of Romania no. 720, no. 721 and no. 722 of 28 August 2026 16 pages PDF, 116 KB the act starts on page 13

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