Strategies for developing knowledge economy in Romania

The present paper delves into the specifics of knowledge economy with a particular focus on Romania. In the first part, it identifies knowledge economy characteristics and pillars and it analyses them as compared to levels exhibited by countries in the European Union. In the second part it argues for the strategies that could be used for enhancing knowledge economy in Romania. In order to do so we used the Delphi method and we identified 25 experts in the knowledge economy/management field coming from internationally renowned companies, universities and ministries located in Romania, to whom we sent invitations for participating in our Delphi survey that lasted one month. Out of the 25 experts, 10 answered positively and during the research we had an attrition rate of 90%. The experts delivered their opinions on the measures to be adopted in order to increase education and learning, ICT and innovation as building blocks of knowledge economy. Findings reveals that knowledge economy can be developed by adopting measures such as: devising a governmental program that will sustain the development of knowledge repositories at the level of technological clusters, industry associations and other professional organizations by providing financial assistance for hardware acquisition and software development in order to facilitate knowledge transfer; Governmental program for the financial support of schools’ investments in hardware and educational software and the training of staff for the use of ITC in teaching and learning, etc.