National research institute heads will be chosen by public competition and must publish their income every year

Whoever runs a national research institute can no longer be appointed without a competition, and their income becomes public information, updated every year. Law no. 174/2026, published on Friday in the Official Gazette of Romania, rewrites the rules of access to the position of director general of national research and development institutes and adds to the national research system a category that was missing from it. The field has already been touched this summer, through the reshuffle of the CNATDCU panels.

The law has three articles and works on two different acts. Art. I introduces a new art. 7¹ into Government Ordinance no. 57/2002 on scientific research and technological development, the one that brings the research nuclei in the defence area into the national system. Art. II amends Law no. 183/2024 on the status of research, development and innovation staff at two points: the first rewrites art. 4 para. (2) and (3), where the staff of the nuclei and the definition of the research nucleus come in, the second adds the articles on the competition. Art. III sets the 30-day deadline within which the methodology of the competition must be updated.

The bulkiest part is point 2 of art. II, which introduces six new articles into Law no. 183/2024, from art. 17¹ to art. 17⁶. They describe, step by step, how the competition for the position of director general is organised: who announces it, who evaluates the candidates, who supervises the process and what happens after the appointment.

The law was adopted under art. 77 para. (2) of the Constitution, that is after re-examination at the request of the President. The promulgation decree, no. 725/2026, bears the same date as the law, 14 August 2026, the day on which both appeared in the Official Gazette of Romania.

Appointments to management posts in public institutions have reached the Constitutional Court as well: in a recent decision the CCR held unconstitutional the procedure by which Parliament appoints the boards of Romanian Television and Romanian Radio.

What it changes in practice

A mandatory public competition, advertised outside the country as well. The position is filled through a public competition organised by the institute’s coordinating authority, announced on the websites of both the authority and the institute, and also on the European EURAXESS platform. The institute must publish on its own site the economic and financial documents that candidates need in order to build their management proposal.

The conditions for taking part are now in the law, not in a methodology. Candidates must hold at least senior researcher grade II (CS II), the grade equated with an established researcher, or, by equivalence, at least the position of associate professor, in the institute’s field. On experience, the law accepts two alternative routes: at least 3 years in a management position in a research organisation in Romania or abroad, or winning through competition and completing at least two research projects, as project director, with a cumulative budget of at least 400,000 euro. Either route may be completed in the institute’s field of activity or in a related research field, which appreciably widens the pool of candidates. Knowledge of Romanian or of English, written and spoken, is also required, a condition that makes the EURAXESS advertisement compatible with the law, plus a state of health appropriate to the position.

Incompatibilities extend to the family. A candidate may not hold shares or stakes in a company with the same profile or in direct commercial relations with the institute. The ban applies equally to the spouse, to relatives and to relatives by marriage up to the third degree inclusive.

The criminal record and the tax record become conditions. Anyone finally convicted of offences against national security, against authority, against humanity, of corruption or offences committed in office, of forgery or offences against the administration of justice may not apply, except in cases of rehabilitation, post-conviction amnesty or decriminalisation. The list of named offences closes with an umbrella category: any offence committed intentionally that would make the candidate incompatible with the position. To these are added a clean tax record and the absence of the sanction provided for in art. 63 letter d), applied for breaching the rules of ethics and good conduct in research.

The interview is held in the presence of observers from outside the panel. The law brings them in only for the duration of the interview, not for every stage: one observer designated by the employers’ organisation that is representative at the level of the relevant collective bargaining sector and one designated by the representative trade union or, as the case may be, a representative of the institute’s employees. Not just anyone may sit in: the observers must be scientific researchers, university teaching staff or support staff for research, development and innovation activities. They monitor compliance with transparency, impartiality, confidentiality, equal opportunities and non-discrimination, and sign a declaration of independence, impartiality and confidentiality.

The director general’s income becomes public every year. By 15 June, the director general publishes on the institute’s website the net income for the previous year. If they fail to do so, the National Authority for Research informs them that the deadline has passed, and if they still do not comply within 30 days of that notification, the minister of education and research is obliged to issue the order terminating the mandate.

The management contract is tied to concrete indicators. The winner signs the contract within no more than 15 working days from the issuance of the appointment order. The managerial performance indicators must compulsorily include the value of European funds attracted, the socio-economic impact of putting the results to use and the partnerships with industry.

The ORNISS clearance comes with a deadline and a sanction. Where the position requires the clearance of the National Registry Office for Classified Information, ORNISS for short, that is access to classified information, the appointee must apply for it within a maximum of 30 days from the appointment, at the institute’s highest level of classification. If the clearance is not obtained, the appointment order is revoked.

Panel members are paid from the institute’s funds. For the work carried out, the members of the competition panel, of the panel for the resolution of appeals and of the technical secretariat are remunerated with a sum representing 10% of the director general’s basic salary, to which travel and accommodation expenses are added, as the case may be. The law does not literally say that the sum is due to each of them, but that is the natural reading of the text.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Until now, the rules of the competition for the position of director general of a national institute sat entirely in the methodology approved by Government Decision no. 576/2016. A methodology is changed by a government decision. From 17 August, the eligibility conditions, the incompatibilities, the role of the observers and the obligations that follow the appointment sit in the law, so they can be amended only by law.

The second change concerns the transparency of income. The law adds an obligation that is distinct from the wealth and interest declarations: publication of the previous year’s net income on the institute’s website, with a fixed deadline, 15 June, and with termination of the mandate as the sanction for non-compliance.

The third change is one of scope. The research nuclei within institutions with responsibilities in defence, public order and national security are now expressly included in the national research and development system and are treated as equal in rights to public law research units and institutions. Their staff belong, by way of exception, to the research, development and innovation staff category. A research nucleus is defined as an organisational and functional structure set up by order of the head of the institution, whose main purpose is to carry out basic research, applied research and technological development.

The funding of these nuclei remains the funding of the institutions they belong to, that is the money allocated to those institutions from the state budget or from other lawfully constituted sources, on the basis of projects approved by the institution’s management.

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