5. Future Prospects in Romania: Scenarios for the Development of the Knowledge Society in Romania

The present report was commissioned by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) during the period March-April 2005. The aim of the study is to contribute to the pool of knowledge on foresight in Europe (FISTERA project) with updated information on the latest developments related to the Foresight programmes or initiatives on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Romania. The main objective of the report is to contribute to a Synthesis analysis on IST foresight in New Member States and Candidate Countries (NMS & CCs) that aims at answering some questions, such as: • What are the commonalities and differences of R&D strategies, innovation strategies, and foresight exercises in the different countries? • Self-perception of NMS & CCs on their respective status towards the Information Society / Knowledge-based Society; • Future IST scenarios in the NMS and CC. To this aim, various methods have been employed in producing of this report. A variety of data sources have been reviewed, including the latest reports published by national or international organizations, bibliographic and web information sources, project reports and official statistical data. Unfortunately, most of the data measuring the Knowledge Society development in Romania proved to be outdated. To offer insights into the prospects of e-government applications, some interviews with external IST experts have been conducted. The selection of views was biased towards those sources who are involved in the truly implementation of the egovernmental concept. Finally, a small-scale expert survey was used to generate scenarios regarding the KS development in Romania. In line with the report structure, this work is contributing with: