On 20 August, the Government approved TechUp Romania at the proposal of the Ministry of Finance. The scheme is financed from the national budget, not from EU funds, and has a total budget of RON 5.313 billion, split almost equally between research and development — RON 2.657 billion — and regional aid for the investment that follows the research phase — RON 2.656 billion. Funding agreements may be issued between 2026 and 2032, while payments may run from 2027 to 2041. The average annual budget is RON 759 million, which the Ministry of Finance presents as approximately €150 million.

TechUp is built under the GBER — the General Block Exemption Regulation, Regulation (EU) No 651/2014, which allows Member States to grant certain categories of State aid without individual prior notification and approval by the European Commission, provided that the conditions set out in the Regulation are met. This also makes one of the programme’s figures particularly interesting: GBER provides for an additional evaluation regime for certain schemes whose average annual State aid budget exceeds €150 million; TechUp has been designed right around that threshold.

The effect of this calibration is clear: at the announced budget level, the scheme does not automatically fall into the category of schemes exceeding the threshold. The GBER evaluation at issue here is not a European assessment of the scientific excellence of individual projects, but an ex-post evaluation of the scheme as a public policy — whether the aid achieves its intended effects, whether it is proportionate and how it affects competition.

Romania has previously funded programmes combining research with production and commercialisation. The “Innovative Technology Project” under the 2014–2020 Competitiveness Operational Programme explicitly supported the development of new or substantially improved products, processes or technologies based on research “for the purpose of production and commercialisation”, and the same logic can be traced back to the earlier Sectoral Operational Programme Increase of Economic Competitiveness. TechUp is therefore better understood as a new generation of a policy Romania has already tested — with the advantage that previous programmes have produced evaluations from which lessons can be learned.

What a TechUp project must look like

A TechUp project cannot consist solely of research, nor can it consist solely of an investment. Two successive components are mandatory and must be included in a single application: at least RON 2 million for research and development and at least RON 3 million for investment in production capacity or service delivery using the technology resulting from that research. Total eligible project costs must range between RON 5 million and RON 50 million.

The scheme targets advanced computing, artificial intelligence, microelectronics and digital infrastructure, biotechnology, Agri-Tech and precision health, green energy, storage and climate technologies, mobility, space and autonomous systems, advanced materials and Industry 4.0, while the version announced following Government approval also explicitly includes cybersecurity and digital security. The selection of these areas and, more importantly, the requirement to place research and industrialisation within the same project are Romanian policy choices; GBER does not require a Member State to finance R&D only where the beneficiary subsequently carries out the productive investment as well.

ItemTechUp ruleProject valueRON 5–50 millionR&Dminimum RON 2 millionProduction/servicesminimum RON 3 millionIndustrial researchaid of up to 50%, before any applicable bonusesExperimental developmentaid of up to 25%, before any applicable bonusesPrivate contributionminimum 25% of the eligible costs of both components, according to the announced versionR&D advancemaximum 30% of the approved annual grantProductive componentgrant within regional-aid limits

In the draft placed under public consultation, eligible R&D costs included personnel, contractual research, instruments and equipment to the extent and for the period in which they are used for the project, and intangible assets purchased or licensed at arm’s-length conditions. For Component II, eligible expenditure included new tangible and intangible assets required for the production capacity or provision of services. The Applicant Guide and Payment Guide, which are to be issued subsequently, will have to confirm the final expenditure matrix and practical procedures.

Who is the scheme really for?

Legally, TechUp is a scheme for undertakings. It is not designed as a grant for a university or research institute that simply wants to conduct research. Under the draft submitted for consultation, contractual research could be purchased from a university or research institute, but the beneficiary of the aid remained the undertaking.

Economically, however, three different profiles of potential beneficiaries emerge.

The first consists of companies that already have serious R&D operations and the capacity to turn the result into a product or service. These companies clearly start with an advantage: they have researchers, internal processes, infrastructure, project experience and the ability to demonstrate that the proposed activity constitutes genuine R&D. But this is also where the potential market may be smaller than it first appears. Romanian companies conducting competitive research and possessing significant absorption capacity have had access in recent years to the Competitiveness Operational Programme, the Smart Growth, Digitalisation and Financial Instruments Programme, Horizon Europe, the EIC and other instruments; TechUp becomes relevant to them if they have a new and distinct project, not if they are attempting to refinance activities that already receive public funding.

Moreover, a company whose main activity is contract research and which does not intend to assume responsibility for the economic exploitation of the technology is not TechUp’s natural beneficiary. The programme also requires it to proceed through Component II. In this sense, TechUp does not select research as an activity in itself; it selects the company willing to become the owner and economic operator of the result.

The second category may be more interesting: mature companies that already develop software, products or technology services but do not yet have a strong internal research function. For a major player in IT, industry or technology services, TechUp could provide an opportunity to move from integrating other companies’ technologies to developing its own technology and its own intellectual property. But the R&D does not come free of charge: the announced version requires the beneficiary to provide at least 25% of the eligible costs of both components from resources that do not contain other public support.

This may be one of the programme’s real objectives: to create new companies that perform R&D, rather than merely subsidising once again those that already conduct research. The evaluation of previous interventions under the Competitiveness Operational Programme does, however, provide a warning: the effects on the volume of research activity and on the number of researcher positions diminished significantly after the completion of interventions designed to stimulate private R&D investment.

The third category is the new deep-tech company built around a technology and private capital. The draft placed under consultation included newly established companies, while the version announced after Government approval creates Category A for autonomous undertakings that lack sufficient own resources and attract venture capital or business angels. Category B allows for a broader mix of equity, reinvested profit, bank loans, intra-group loans, venture capital and business angels.

The architecture is particularly interesting here. An entrepreneur or investor bringing technology and private capital into a company established in Romania can use public support as leverage to move from technology to market. The participation of a fund or business angel also provides a degree of additional private validation, although it does not replace the State’s technical assessment: the investor is putting its own money at risk. The role of private capital was strengthened as the scheme evolved and was among the issues addressed by AmCham Romania in its technical comments during the consultation process.

How the funding is actually paid

For Component I, there are actual cash grants, combined for certain categories of expenditure with the 200% tax deduction; for Component II, aid is provided as a regional investment grant. In the May 2026 draft, personnel costs and contractual research were financed through grants, while instruments, equipment and intangible assets were covered through a combination of grant and tax deduction.

An important change introduced before the scheme was approved is the possibility of receiving an advance of up to 30% of the annual grant approved for research and development. A new advance may be requested once the previous one has been justified, while the beneficiary must report quarterly on project progress and the use of funds. This is not a minor administrative detail: the evaluation of the previous Competitiveness Operational Programme identified pre-financing as one of the mechanisms that helped beneficiaries, alongside their relationship with funding bodies and progress in simplifying certain procedures.

What the 200% deduction actually means

The company does not receive twice the value of the expenditure from the State. The additional deduction reduces the taxable base used to calculate corporate income tax, while the resulting tax advantage constitutes State aid and must be combined with the grant so that the maximum permitted aid intensity is not exceeded.

The mechanism is naturally more valuable in the short term to a company generating taxable profits than to a start-up operating at a loss. That does not remove the start-up from the programme — it can still access the grant and the advance — but it makes TechUp particularly interesting for mature companies able to combine grant funding with tax savings.

Who will decide what counts as research?

This remains one of the major unknowns. The Ministry of Finance is the provider and administrator of the scheme, while the Applicant Guide will have to explain the evaluation and monitoring procedure. The Ministry has announced that the guides will be issued within a maximum of 45 working days from the entry into force of the Government Decision.

The problem is not merely bureaucratic; it is technical. Who decides whether an application using an existing AI model constitutes industrial research, experimental development or simply commercial software development? Romania has encountered this problem before: evaluations of previous programmes found that beneficiaries and consultants could confuse innovation and technology transfer with ordinary company modernisation. At the same time, the evaluation of the Competitiveness Operational Programme identified lengthy evaluation procedures and substantial delays in signing funding contracts, as well as a lack of clarity in funding guides, among the factors that hindered results.

Romania already has institutional experience within the Intermediate Body for Research, which evaluated and selected previous innovative technology projects, including projects submitted by companies in partnership with research institutes and universities. It is not yet clear whether the Ministry of Finance will use this expertise for TechUp. For a programme financing AI, biotech, microelectronics, space technologies and advanced materials at the same time, the composition of the evaluation teams and the length of the assessment process may matter almost as much as the percentage of the grant.

Several policy choices worth watching

The first is the explicit inclusion of venture capital and business angels. This is probably one of the scheme’s strongest ideas: the State can use public support as leverage for private capital and potentially to attract new technology investment into Romania. At the same time, the requirement to retain the intellectual property and the economic activity in the investment region indicates that the objective is not merely to pay for research, but to keep part of the resulting economic value in Romania. This rule does not, however, mean that the shareholders of a start-up can never sell their company; a change in ownership and a transfer of intellectual property are legally different matters, and the rules governing exits will have to be clarified in the Applicant Guide.

The second is geography. The productive component is regional aid, and aid intensity differs substantially between counties; Bucharest is not an assisted area, while some localities in Ilfov County are. For the IT sector, this raises a very practical question: if the final architecture requires the R&D and its economic exploitation to remain closely linked geographically, the programme could create an incentive to locate new investment outside Bucharest in areas where regional aid is higher, even though the capital remains Romania’s largest concentration of technology companies, universities and skills.

The third is competition from other sources of funding. TechUp does not operate in a grant vacuum. A company conducting competitive research may access the Smart Growth, Digitalisation and Financial Instruments Programme, Horizon Europe, the EIC or other instruments. Previous programmes already included innovative technology projects, partnerships with universities and institutes, and support for start-ups and spin-offs. TechUp will be attractive if it provides something those instruments do not offer as simply: a single national route from research to economic investment. The Applicant Guide will, however, need to make very clear where legitimate complementarity with other programmes ends and double funding begins.

Finally, the flexibility introduced for deep-tech projects is noteworthy: in the first years, progress towards the market may be demonstrated not only through sales but also through pilot projects, paid tests, letters of intent, certifications, customer validations, subsequent financing rounds, intellectual property or strategic partnerships, while the maintenance period may be extended where demonstrable progress exists; in certain situations, the scheme even provides for proportional rather than automatically full recovery of the aid. This is a realistic acknowledgement of technological risk, but it also places considerable responsibility on the future Applicant Guide: without precise definitions and thresholds, flexibility can turn into administrative discretion.

TechUp has the money. Selection will be the real test

TechUp does not invent the path from research to production in Romania, and that is more good news than bad. There is already experience, there are evaluators, beneficiaries and evaluations showing what worked and what did not: pre-financing helped, lengthy procedures hurt, unclear guides caused problems, and simply financing an R&D department does not guarantee that a company will continue to perform research once the project ends.

What is new about TechUp is the combination: national money, grants, a tax advantage, private capital and the requirement that research have, from the outset, a route towards economic exploitation in Romania.

It would therefore be useful for the Ministry of Finance to explain what kind of impact assessment it intends to build: not how much money was spent, but how many companies continued to conduct R&D, how much private capital was attracted, how many technologies reached the market, how much IP remained in Romania and how much economic activity would have existed without the public support.

Until then, the decisive document for applicants is no longer the Government Decision. It is the Applicant Guide: that is where we will find out who evaluates the technology, how projects are selected, how long the assessment takes and how difficult it will be, in practice, to prove that what an applicant calls “research” is genuinely research.

Ministerul Finanțelor – comunicatul după aprobarea TechUp, 20 august 2026. Este sursa principală pentru bugetul de 5,313 miliarde lei, împărțirea R&D/investiții, bugetul mediu anual de 759 milioane lei, perioada 2026–2032, plățile până în 2041, avansul de 30%, domenii, categoriile A/B, IP și mecanismul de monitorizare. Ministerul Finanțelor – TechUp aprobat de Guvern

Ministerul Finanțelor – lansarea în consultare, 8 mai 2026. Utilă pentru forma inițială a schemei și pentru a reconstrui ce s-a schimbat până la aprobare.

Ministerul Finanțelor – proiectul TechUp în dezbatere

OUG 8/2026 – Portalul Legislativ. Este baza națională a pachetului de relansare și prevede explicit scheme exceptate de la notificare pentru cercetare și tehnologii înalte, cu Ministerul Finanțelor în rol central.

OUG nr. 8/2026 – Portal Legislativ

GBER / Regulamentul (UE) nr. 651/2014 – versiunea consolidată EUR-Lex. Articolul 25 dă cadrul pentru R&D, inclusiv intensitățile de bază de 50% pentru cercetare industrială și 25% pentru dezvoltare experimentală; articolul 1 conține pragul de peste 150 milioane euro buget mediu anual pentru mecanismul suplimentar de evaluare.

GBER – Regulation (EU) No 651/2014

AmCham România – primul set de observații, 18 mai 2026. Document public, cu propuneri privind proiectele deep-tech, firmele nou-înființate, plafonul proiectelor, cheltuielile salariale și tratamentul fiscal.

AmCham – feedback TechUp, 18 mai 2026

AmCham România – al doilea set de observații, 27 iunie 2026. Se raportează la o versiune deja modificată a schemei și discută Categoriile A/B, raportul dintre R&D și producție, firmele nou-înființate, deducerea de 200% și codurile CAEN. 

AmCham – feedback asupra proiectului actualizat

POC 2014–2020 – Ghidul „Proiect Tehnologic Inovativ”. Este precedentul important pentru afirmația că România a mai finanțat cercetarea legată de producerea și comercializarea rezultatului.

Ghid Proiect Tehnologic Inovativ – POC

Evaluarea intervențiilor POC în CDI. De aici provin observațiile privind diminuarea R&D și a posturilor de cercetător după terminarea unor intervenții, rolul pozitiv al prefinanțării, precum și problemele privind durata evaluării, întârzierea contractării și lipsa de claritate a ghidurilor.

Sumarul executiv – Evaluarea POC CDI

Evaluarea POR 2014–2020 – transfer tehnologic, Operațiunea 1.1.C. Problema confundării inovării/transferului tehnologic cu modernizarea obișnuită: raportul consemnează 94 de aplicații și faptul că, în majoritatea regiunilor, proiectele nu au demonstrat valorificarea economică reală a unui rezultat de transfer tehnologic. 

Evaluarea POR – Transfer tehnologic

Organismul Intermediar pentru Cercetare. Observația că România are deja o structură cu experiență în elaborarea ghidurilor și schemelor CDI, evaluarea, selecția, contractarea și monitorizarea proiectelor POS CCE, POC și POCIDIF. 

OIC – atribuții și programe administrate

Harta ajutoarelor regionale 2022–2027 – HG 311/2022. Diferențele teritoriale ale intensității ajutorului și pentru situația particulară a Ilfovului; Bucureștiul nu apare între zonele asistate enumerate. 

HG 311/2022 – Portal Legislativ