Anca Dodescu

Regional Innovation Governance in the Context of European Integration and Multi-level Governance Challenges. A Case Study of North-West Region of Romania☆

Abstract In the last 20 years European Union fostered the innovativeness of regions as a mean of growing competitiveness in the context of globalization. In Romania the innovation governance has been implemented and considered only recently, in the context of its imperative request from the European Union accession in January 2007. Up to this stage, there are serious deficiencies in the innovation governance at regional level, especially because of the “lack of regional focus” of the innovation policies in the context of European integration and multi-level governance challenges in Romania as EU New Member State. The present paper presents the case of North-West region of Romania as a leading knowledge region and uses its success story as a model for the other Romanian regions. The experience gained in this region, before EU accession of Romania, through implementation of Regional Innovation Strategies RIS, in the purpose of identifying the regional innovation potential and encourage technological transfer between research and business communities and create a regional innovation strategy and a future action plan, and after Romanias EU accession - through implementation projects funded by the 2007-2013 National RDI Plan, Regional Operational Programme and Increasing Economic Competitiveness Operational Programme etc., are convincing arguments to empower the role of regional innovation governance. According to the Romanian Innovation barometer, in 2008, the North-West region was the third region regarding innovation, after Bucharest-Ilfov, the region containing the capital city, and South-East region. The present paper identifies the determinants of success and sources of failures and makes policy recommendations for the local, regional and national government as well.

Do Practice Stages Encourage Students in Economics to Practice Entrepreneurship? Practeam Project☆

Abstract The analysis of the influence of practice and internship stages to strengthen entrepreneurial skills of students in Economics and encouraging them to practice entrepreneurship is an interesting additional result of PRACTeam project that proposes a model of transition from school to active life for students in Economics based on inter-regional labour market partnership between universities and business environment. In our opinion, the potential of Practice – as curricular activity, but also as work and learning experience - to enhance student entrepreneurship learning is under-evaluated and under-exploited. The research activity performed in order to find if practice stages encourage students in Economics to practice entrepreneurship took place in two directions: quantitative – consisting in the research based on the survey of the most significant aspects concerning the influence of practice stages to strengthen entrepreneurial skills of students in Economics and encouraging them to practice entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial profile of the potentially enterprising students - member of the PRACTeam projects target groups, and qualitative – consisting in the research based on an open structured interview of some aspects concerning the entrepreneurial profile applied to some successful students who were awarded in the project, who were employed as result of internship stages and who became entrepreneurs. Starting from the results of the quantitative and qualitative research performed in the PRACTeam project, the paper concludes with arguments and recommendations for emerging challenges in university curricula and pedagogical approaches in order to support both youth employment and youth entrepreneurship and to encourage potential entrepreneurship of students in Economics in Romania.

Business Environment Development and Regional Policy in North-West Region of Romania☆

Abstract This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the regional policy performance in the field of business environment development in Central and Eastern Europe by presenting specific findings of the on-going evaluation of the regional policy through Regional Operational Programme (ROP) 2007-2013 for the North-West Region of Romania, focusing on “What does not work?” and “Why?”, and on possible solutions and emerging challenges. The research activity took place in two directions: theoretical evaluation of regional policy in the field of business environment development-based on analysis of official documents regarding on-going evaluation of the ROP 2007-2013 in Romania, the European Commission opinions, official data and internal data of the Romanian Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration and North-West Regional Development Agency, and quantitative research–based on the survey of the most significant aspects concerning the projects implemented in the field of business environment development through ROP 2007-2013, applied to the beneficiaries of the projects finalized at 1.10.2012.