Romania is last of the 27 member states in the 2026 European Innovation Scoreboard, published by the European Commission on 9 July. The summary index, measured against the 2026 EU average, is 41.8. The country stays in the emerging-innovator group and last inside that group. Since 2019 the score has risen by 8.2 points, below the EU average gain of 11.6, so the gap has widened. Against the 2025 edition the gain is 1.4 points.

In the same report, high-speed internet is a strong point: Romania ranks 4th in the EU on that indicator. Among the relative weaknesses, the Commission lists the population with tertiary education, small firms introducing process innovations, and the job mobility of highly qualified staff. The Frames analysis published on Friday and signed by Adrian Negrescu ties 27th place to concrete costs. “Our place at the back of the innovation ranking will cost us wages, exports and competitiveness over the next decade,” he says. That is the analyst’s warning, not a figure from the Commission report.

Frames sets the result next to the IT industry. It cites ANIS: revenue of 23.6 billion euro in 2024 and a direct contribution to GDP of 6.67 percent, against almost 8 percent in 2021. In 2025, IT&C services became the main services export. Negrescu says an important part of the sector still sells hours on outsourced projects, and that artificial-intelligence models take over repetitive programming most easily. “If the industry does not move quickly from selling hours to selling products, we can lose one of the few export engines with high added value.”

On capital, the analysis cites the How to Web report: Romanian start-ups raised about 103 million euro in 2025, in 40 deals, roughly a fifth less than the 130.7 million in 2024. In Europe, venture capital rose to about 66 billion euro, of which about 23.5 billion went to artificial-intelligence companies. Frames writes that Romania has more than 4 percent of the Union’s population and receives under 0.2 percent of the venture capital invested on the continent. The largest Romanian round in 2025 was Druid AI’s, 27.5 million euro, Series C, more than a quarter of the year’s total.

Use of the technology remains rare in firms. Frames cites Eurostat: in 2025, 5.2 percent of Romanian companies with at least ten employees used artificial intelligence, the lowest share in the EU, against an average of about 20 percent and 42 percent in Denmark. Negrescu says that, at one firm in twenty, the country misses the productivity jump, and that without capital for start-ups there are neither local suppliers nor ready customers. Also in the analysis, on INS and Eurostat data: total research-and-development spending fell in 2024 to 0.46 percent of GDP, from 0.51 percent, and the public research budget reached 0.09 percent of GDP in 2025, under the 0.1 percent line for the first time in two decades, against a European average of 0.69 percent.

The instrument Frames puts forward is RoBOOST, a fund of funds of the Investment and Development Bank and the European Investment Fund. The memorandum was signed on 1 July 2026. The bank is considering a contribution of 100 million euro, close to what start-ups raised in 2025. The money would not go straight to firms: it would be placed in venture-capital and private-equity funds, and the managers would choose the companies, from early stage to later ones. Public money can be matched by private capital. After the memorandum come the bilateral agreement and the selection of the funds, done by the European Investment Fund. The 100 million is not a payment already made.

The other figures in the Frames scenario are simulations, not decisions. Pillar II pension funds manage assets of almost 247 billion lei; 1 percent directed to venture capital and private equity would mean almost 500 million euro. For 2030, Frames proposes that start-ups raise more than 300 million euro a year, that the share of firms using artificial intelligence pass 15 percent, and that research and development move toward 1 percent of GDP. None of these targets has been adopted.

Image: Wikimedia Commons — Politehnica University of Bucharest, photograph by Mister rf (CC BY-SA 4.0). The building illustrates a technical university, not a firm financed through RoBOOST.

Sources consulted: Romania, last in the EU on innovation — Capital; European Innovation Scoreboard 2026 — European Commission; Negrescu (Frames): last place in the EU on innovation — AGERPRES.