An asset-based approach of the Romanian research-development and innovation system

The present paper experiments a new model of analysis for the Research-Development and Innovation (RDI) field of research, namely the Asset-Based Development strategy or Appreciative Planning and Action, which unfolds at the community level the same core principle that Appreciative Inquiry Methods at the organizational level: strengths elevating, strengths combining, strengths extending systems. Following the four “D stages” (Discovery, Dream, Design and Destiny/ Deliver) pattern, the authors outlined many strengths and achievements of the Romanian RDI system in order to depict the positive trends, structures and mechanism, as well as to map out the main routes towards fulfilling a new vision. Building upon ideas, opinions, studies, interviews of different representatives of the research community (managers, scientists, professors, users etc) expressed in specialised literature, newspapers, journals, or in direct contact and dialogue with them, we intended this approach encompass the appreciative contributions of the main stakeholders: universities, public and private research institutes, the business sector, public policy-makers. In this complex and rather rigid RDI system, whose elements are heterogeneous institutions and communities, that interacting each other in a special environment such as a network structure, effective change is still to be brought by individuals who possess the necessary power to continue transform their mind and attitudes and thus to initiate, diffuse change and, influencing the RDI environment. This might be a viable way to improve, in a positive manner, the RDI system’s efficiency.