ISSN: 2247-6172, ISSN - L: 2247-6172 Review of Applied Socio- Economic Research (Volume 20, Issue 2/ 2020), pp. 72-85 URL: http://www.reaser.eu e-mail: editors@reaser.eu 72 Research-development and innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises in Romania Simona Maria Stănescu 1+ , Daniela Vîrjan 2 1 Research Institute for Quality of Life, Romanian Academy, 2 Academy of Economic Studies, Faculty of Theoretic and Applied Economy, Bucharest, Romania Abstract. Within the withdraw of the welfare state from its classic functions of providing a decent quality of life for citizens, the individual's role in supporting their living standard is increasing. Personal accountability in the current socio-economic context marked by labour force mobility, economic competitiveness, international economic exchanges, demographic challenges, active aging, and the emergence of some new and atypical employment forms (part-time work, teleworking, self-employment, etc.) reconfigure the role that accessing and maintaining a job plays. The article analyses private small-and medium-sized Romanian enterprises' capacity to integrate research-development and innovation (RD&I) elements within their ordinary activity. The research hypothesis is that despite these actions taken by Romanian SMEs the innovation process as a whole is still not well represented within their current activities in the meaning of limited openness towards the innovation process. The research methodology is based on a secondary analysis of the data collected within the 2004-2018 White book of SMEs in Romania. 15 yearly editions collected data were focused on SMEs' innovations and characteristics of SMEs digitalization process. In terms of findings, the openness of Romanian SMEs towards innovation can be characterized by innovation activities and ways of achieving innovation. Investment in Romanian SMEs' innovation is rather the desired direction as it only occupied the top position in 2007. The main information sources for SMEs' innovative processes are “customers and consumers, own organisation, and journals and specialized magazines". As a promising track is recorded in Romania in the last years towards integrating RD&I in ordinary SMEs' activities, medium, and long term complementary national public policies should welcome and further push these sustainable development directions. Keywords: digitalisation, innovation, small- and medium-sized enterprises, Romania JEL Codes: O32, 035, M15, 1. Introduction Acknowledged at the European Union’ level, innovation was promoted by the Lisbon Strategy as well as Europe 2020 Strategy. Besides, the year 2009 was proclaimed as the European Year of Innovation and Creativity at the level of EU member states. Current international established goals (e.g. UN Sustainable Development Goals or European Green Deal) emphasize the key role played by research-development and innovation (RD&I) strategies in achieving economic and social goals as reducing poverty or clean environment-related actions in order to stop global warming. The article assumes as a starting point that modern society "is characterized by innovation institutionalization, respectively by the expansion of systematic activities of searching, generating, applying and disseminating at as high paces as possible the innovation in all sectors of the social system” (Vlăsceanu, 1993, p. 302). The emphasis on promoting innovative elements triggered the research question of the present paper: to what extent the Romanian small and medium-sized enterprises are open to the innovation process. In order to answer this question, secondary analyses based on information about innovation in SMEs, and the + Corresponding Author. Email address: simona.stanescu@iccv.ro