Iasi County ITC

Destination:
competitiveness in IT&C

Bridging the gap between Academia and Industry in Romania
Challenges and ways to narrow the gap
Economic Forum, Krynica-Zdroj, September 3
rd
, 2014

Iai County
SUMMARY
Who we are?
What we have to offer?
What we want?

Quality of life
Skilled human
resources
Business infrastructure
and opportunties
Youth and
dynamism
North-East Region, ROMANIA - Open to innovation
Location and demographics.
North-East Region
6 counties (Iai, Bacu, Botoani, Neam,
Suceava and Vaslui)

North-East Region economic catchment
area includes part of the neighbour counties
(Vrancea, Galai), Republic of Moldavia and a
part of Ukraine (over 5 million inhabitants)
3.8 million inhabitants (17.30% of total
Romanians population); 56.3% in rural areas

37.000 km surface

Regional GDP USD 12.26 million,
contribution of 11.8% to Romanias GDP

Romania
South-Eastern Europe
Location and demographics.
Iai County
0,87 million inhabitants: 44.7% in the urban
area and 55.3% in the rural area (the second most
populated county in Romania, after Bucharest)

5.476 km surface (2.3% from the Romanian
territory, of which 69.45% is agricultural land,
17.81% woods and forest land area, 2.54% water
and ponds and 10.19% lands with other destination)

2 municipalities (Iai and Pacani), 3 towns and
93 communes
IS
Economy
Iasi county is predominantly agricultural, due to its topography.

Industry is concentrated in the cities.
The principal industries are:
Software
Pharmaceuticals
Automotive
Metallurgy and heavy-equipment manufacturing
Electronics & Electrotechnics
Textiles
Food production

Facilities for investors
Dynamic and friendly public administration:
Iai County Council and Local Councils (identification of lands, buildings,
urbanism-related documentation, authorizations for constructions, local
fiscal facilities).
County Agency for Labor Force Employment for creation of new jobs;
National Agency for Private Small-Medium Enterprises in Romania
(www.animmc.ro);
Banks and credit facilities;
Department for Infrastructure Projects and Forein Investments
(http://www.dpiis.ro/)

Romanian legislation provides tax exemption for IT programmers.
Regional educational and business
infrastructure
EDUCATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE:
Human resources key-factor in the development of regional economies.
North-East Region provides excellence education at all levels, the number of students
enrolled in tertiary and university study programs exceeding 770,000/year
(representing 17,95% of the national total, cf. 2011).
The academic centers in the Region (7 public and 4 private universities) educate more
than 78,000 students.
INDUSTRIAL PARKS authorized in the counties of Neam, Botoani and Bacu.
18 BUSSINES CENTERS AND BUSINESS INCUBATORS spread across the entire Region
(out of which 9 in the county of Iai).
TEHNOPOLIS Science and Technology Park county of Iai.
TRANSAGROPOLIS Agroindustrial Park, Lecani, county of l Iai.

IAI INDUSTRIAL PARK ONGOING PROJECT
Building a sustainable future: Industrial Park Lecani, Iai
Main road connections: DN28 (E583), DJ248A, DJ248.
Railway connections with other functional areas of the country.
Iai International Airport - 15 km away.
Main advantages:
the presence of a major investor in the area (Delphi Diesel
Systems Romania);
utilities available.
Impact:
new jobs;
boost investment in the area;
stable labour force.
Estimated value: USD 43,6 million.
Expected funding sources:
capital contribution; loans from
banks and other financial
institutions; concessions in advance
and PPP.
April 2014: Starting of the execution
of the Zonal Urban Plan (30 ha).
Mai 2014: Legal registration of the
Industrial Park Management Company.
Open for business
Iai Industrial
Park, Lecani
Iai
International
Airport
Initiator and main shareholder: Iai County Council.
Partner: Local Council of Lecani, Iai County.
Clustering potential in the Region
The Study Clusters and Potential Clusters in Romania. A Mapping
exercise (2010) shows that in the North-East Region it is appropriate to
developing clusters in industries such as textiles, bio-medicine, pharmacy,
tourism, IT&C etc.
The following elements were taken into account to identify the
clustering potential:
Concentration of companies;
Existence of RDI units;
Workforce quality;
Traditions of cooperation;
Existence of a critical mass of third services providers.

IT&C development potential
Subsidiaries of
multinational companies.
Highly qualified
workforce.
High potential
development activities in
North-East Region:
IT&Telecom
BPO
backoffice
outsourcing
technology transfer
and research.

ROMANIAN IT&C INDUSTRY
The last decade was very beneficial for the Romanian IT&C industry: the number of companies
tripled to 11.000, as well as the number of employees (60.000 in 2010 only for the software segment).
In 2012, Romania was included in the Worlds Top 10 Outsourcing Destinations (Business supplement
of The Times Magazine) 6
th
place.

PROs:
Although Romania cannot hope to rival much larger countries such as India, China or Russia in
terms of breadth of expertise across application development, we do excel in use and development
of new technologies and offer strong software development methodologies and processes.
geographical proximity to Western Europe;
Strategic location: at the crossing of 3 pan European transport corridors, the Eastern border of the
inland EU and at the turning point where EU meets the Balkans and CIS countries.
Cost advantage compared to Central Europe;
Membership of the European Union (unlike most of the Eastern Europe countries) ease of travel,
visit and staff deployment;
Particularly strong language skills of both management and technical staff (English, French,
German, Italian).
Fact files:
Iasi the 2
nd
city of Romania (by number of inhabitants);
Strategic location - in the NorthEastern part of Romania, on the EU Eastern border
with the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine;
5 public universities (3 of them ranked as A - advance research and education
institutions by the Romanian Ministry of Education);
Large number of students/year: 55.000 60.000, out of which:
IT&C specialities: more than 1400 Bachelor degree, 450 Master degree and
200 Ph.D. graduates/year.
Highly qualified labour force;
Excellent language skills: English, French, German, Italian, Arabic.

IASI IT&C INDUSTRY
Office Buildings and
Facilities for Investors - Iasi
has an office premises stock
of over 100,000 m2, of
which at least 70,000 m2
are of A/B + class standard.
Approximately 6,000
employees in Iasi County
work in IT&C companies.
Total turnover 2011 $ 130
million.
Companies - 734
companies in Iasi in IT&C
industry.

IASI IT&C INDUSTRY: POTENTIAL AND OPPORTUNITIES
Regional Innovative Cluster
EURONEST IT&C HUB
March 2013: call for
participation in the Strategic
Council of the Cluster
(personalities from the
political, economic, academic
and cultural environment);
May 14th, 2013: official
signing of the Constitutive
Documents of the Regional
Innovative Cluster.
Area: North-East Region, counties of Iai, Bacu, Botoani, Neam, Suceava and Vaslui.
Business Sector: software and services; information technology and communications;
CAEN codes : MAIN - Software and IT Services.
Founders:
PUBLIC AUTHORITIES:
- EURONEST Intercommunity Development Association county councils of Iai, Bacu, Botoani,
Neam, Suceava, Vaslui;
- Iai City Hall.
12 IC&T SMEs
(SC Centric IT Solutions Romania SRL, SC Dicode SRL, SC Embarcadero Technologies SRL, SC Entreprise
Business Systems SRL, SC Focality SRL, SC GreenSoft SRL, SC Intelligent Bee Web SRL, SC NESS Romania
SRL, SC RomSoft SRL, SC Software Vision Business SRL, SC The Red Point SA, SC Travel Tech SRL)
4 UNIVERSITIES AND RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
(Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iai ,Gh. Asachi Technical University, Iai, 1Vasile Alecsandri
University, Bacu, tefan cel Mare University, Suceava)
NGOs, BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS
OTHER COMPANIES IN RELATED FIELDS
President: Adrian Brezulianu, GreenSoft SRL

EURONEST IT&C HUB
EURONEST IT&C HUB
0
5000000
10000000
15000000
20000000
25000000
30000000
35000000
40000000
45000000
2010 2011 2012
Evolution of turnover (LEI) of SMEs activating in the SOFTWARE AND IT
SERVICES industry within the EURONEST IT&C HUB

Total turnover of SMEs in the cluster was about EUR 17,3 in 2010, followed by a slight increase
of 1,57% in 2012 and reaching EUR 21,6 million in 2012, which represents an increase of over
23% compared to 2010.
Total number of employees of the
cluster members exceeds 5,000
people. An increase of at least 15% is
expected for 2013, a trend that is
expected to be continued in 2014,
with a jump to 20-205%.
Actions in progress
Beyond the current services offered to members, the cluster entity has already implemented
some important actions :
Project aiming to develop new modern IC&T study programs and to deliver joint study
programs (undergraduate and master level) in foreign languages (budget: 500,000 );
Financing awarded to Increase of the competitiveness of the Regional Innovative Cluster
EURONEST IT&C HUB and enhancement of interactions among cluster members for the
development of high technology products and services, with a total budget of EUR 800,000
(only 20 of the 46 existing clusters submitted projects within this 1st national call);
the project has two components for industrial research, jointly developed by SMEs and
universities in the cluster: (1) TACT - The development of new assistive technologies for
communication and telesupervision with neurolocomotor severely disabled and (2)
SisConGes - Developing a reconfigurable system for intelligent building control and
manage the use of energy from renewable sources.
included in the European Cluster Observatory;
IT&C selected as one of the 4 priority industries in the Regional Smart Specialization
Strategy.

InterUniversitas
the most important educational project for Iasi
Strategic objective: Setting up RDI as the foundation of the sustainable
development of Iai and Moldova, based on new added-value products and
technologies, in order to consolidate the city of Iai as the Development Pole of
Romania.
Project key-elements:
setting up of a consortium of state universities, sharing educational and
business resources;
donation of land, by the Iasi County Council;
developing of a new campus of the consortium in Copou, with separate
spaces for teaching, research and accomodation for each university and a dining
room, multipurposes gym and at least one building to be jointly use by members:
creating, in this common building, of joint facilities for teaching, exhibition,
multifunctional (multi- and inter-disciplinary) workshops ;
development of research and technology transfer centers , at least in the
field of IT, medicine and engineering .
attracting large multinational companies in the campus to develop academic-
business partnerships. Based on the advantages of this partnership, these
companies will develop new facilities for research, production and services thus
ensuring the technology transfer.

Is Academia meeting Romanian economic needs?
Education boom - phenomenal growth in the number of
students and higher education institutions.
During 1990-2008 the number of graduates has increased more
than 8 times.
new forms of education were developed, including the creation of
private sector education (more than 80 private higher education
institutions created).
The improvement and growth of educational opportunities has
increased the attractiveness of RO as a location for foreign
investments. A well-educated and cost-competitive workforce is
regarded as one of the strong points of the Romanian economy.

Quality of the boom
Despite the increased number of graduates, RO is facing growing concerns about the quality
of the education they receive.
Growth in the number of students has not been accompanied by similar growth in
research and lecturing potential.
The ratio of the number of students to academic lecturers has been steadily increasing
from 10 in the beginning of the 1990s to almost 32 nowadays, one of the highest in
Europe (exceptional cases: 141 students/professor in some private universities).
Therefore, the inflow of new staff to the universities is limited while its load has
increased, which has to have an impact on the quality of the educational process.
The success of RO students in international tournaments (e.g. IT coding) cannot hide the
fact that universities have not improved their position in international rankings.
Spending on education has increased significantly in recent years. Its structure can be,
however, discouraging as only a relatively small fraction is being spent on education
infrastructure.
RO has not been able to turnaround a negative trend in R&D expenditures (below 0.3%,
the lowest in the European Union).

Low cooperation between Academia and Industry
Macro level analyses indicate that the gap between industry and academia is rather
increasing than decreasing.
RO is on the low end of the EU with regards to the private share in R&D financing
(12% in 2008).
The share of enterprises of foreign origin in total R&D expenditures amounts to
almost 60%.
Only 400 industrial enterprises in RO had contracted relations with higher
education institutions.
Industry-academia cooperation is a priority of the European Commission,
addressed not only by the Lisbon strategy or Bologna process but also by a
dedicated platform in the University-Business Forum.
Thanks to its academic potentials, RO and Iasi, the cultural capital of Romania, are
well suited to take a more proactive role in this process.

Low cooperation between Academia and Industry
In a survey published in 2006 by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, conducted
among 200 multinational firms on factors impacting R&D location decisions, five
major factors were identified for investing in emerging economies:
the domestic markets growth potential;
quality of R&D personnel;
costs (net of tax breaks);
the expertise of university faculty;
ease of collaborating with universities.

The study confirms the importance of soft factors impacting location decisions,
such as the ease and willingness of cooperation (which are key factors in setting
up cooperation forms, such as clusters).

Risks and costs of the low cooperation between Academia and Industry
1. limited knowledge transfer from business to academia, leading to the aging of
the knowledge of academic staff and generating graduates with limited
knowledge of the newest technologies;
2. lack of practical aspects of education, which leads to a low graduates
attractiveness for potential employers;
3. skills shortages which may cause investors to invest outside of RO;
4. increased business costs to retrain newly hired graduates, especially in the IT
industry;
5. inability of RO science to cooperate with industry, which may negatively impact
its presence in EU funded projects aimed at joint industry-science consortia;
6. further decrease of private financing for RO R&D; which will not only harm the
R&D sector, but also the enterprise sector, specifically SMEs, which do not have
their own R&D potential.
Ways to narrow the gap between Academia and Industry
1. Industry observes skills shortages, primarily in the technical fields.
2. Education quality is deteriorating and does not match industry needs.
3. Industry-academia cooperation is not intensive, however, there is willingness to
improve it (i.e. clusters, networks etc.).
4. The general climate for industry-academia cooperation in RO is worse than in
other countries.
5. Low quality of research and not understanding business needs are key barriers for
establishing cooperation.
6. Industry lacks good information about the quality and potential of academia.
7. Government should engage more actively in direct and indirect support of
industry-academia cooperation.
8. Bureaucracy and not understanding business needs are key barriers for
establishing cooperation.
Thank you for your attention!
Alina Popa, Ph.D.
executive director,
Regional Innovative Cluster EURONEST IT&C HUB

Al.I.Cuza University, Iasi

www.adieuronest.ro, www.icc.ro
office@adieuronest.ro


Iasi County ITC

Transféré par

Informations du document

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Iasi County ITC

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Destination:

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi