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Planning and acting with empathy, responsibility, and care for humans and our planet creates a sustainable environment. A sustainable ecosystem requires access to a set of renewable resources with high availability. Such resources should be harnessed and used in harmony with the environment, without damaging the life of all beings. Excessive use of resources, even renewable ones, poses a real challenge in terms of environmental degradation and worsening climatic conditions. Such threats are realistic for humanity if consumer-led habits are not mediated with competences on sustainability. This research considers that education and training in the field of environment and sustainability are important, having a positive role in the decisive actions to be taken. Focusing on what Romanian students believe about the need to incorporate environmental education into university programs, the paper explores the importance of building complementary skills in the field of sustainability through educational initiatives and other industry-academia partnerships.

The COVID-19 pandemic along with lockdowns, distancing measures and school closures affected individuals both at work and in their family. Disparities that existed before the pandemic have been amplified by the measures taken to combat this new disease. In this regard, a field in focus is the engagement of women in academic community of scientific research. Our study aims to assess the COVID-19 impact on papers published by the research teams in Romanian journals indexed WOS – Economics and to investigate whether the number of female authors of a paper influences the probability of the paper being cited in WOS. The statistical investigation comprised both descriptive analysis and logistic regression. The results highlight that approximately 60% of the research studies have a male first author. Moreover, most of the manuscripts have 2 to 4 authors and 24% of them have no female author and only 15% of them have no male author. The findings reveal that the share of papers with a female first author is approximately 40% in both pre and post pandemic years. The number of studies written by mixed teams increased in 2021 compared to 2020 and 2019, while the numbers show lower values for the ones written exclusively by females in 2019 and 2021 compared to 2020. Our results of the logit regression model suggest that the probability of a research paper being cited in WOS relies on the year of publication, the number of pages as well as the number of female authors.

In this paper, we investigated the extent to which the accession to the EU has had an effect on increasing the variety of exports of agri-food categories for two Eastern European countries, namely Romania and Bulgaria. We also assessed the impact of changes in the variety of exports of agri-food categories on the dynamics of the volume of exports of agri-food products for these two countries and used the entropy to measure the variability of exports of agri-food products by categories. The results confirm the important role played by related variety in increasing a country's long-term exports of agri-food products and show that the high concentration of exports on a small number of categories of agri-food products that include mostly agricultural raw materials cannot ensure a sustainable increase in the export of agri-food products for Romania. In the case of Bulgaria, the related variety has a positive impact on ensuring a sustainable increase in agri-food exports. The accession to the EU was an important factor for the increase of the exported agri-food goods for Romania while in the case of Bulgaria, the accession to the EU did not mark a positive or negative shock on the volume of exports of agri-food products.

Internal migration is one of the most important drivers for reducing poverty and facilitating economic development. However, the factors that affect population mobility within a country, as well as the relationship between internal migration and economic development, are difficult to understand. This paper aims to provide an analysis of the population mobility in Romania, so that one understands the relationship between the economic development and internal migration. In order to achieve this objective, official data provided by the National Institute of Statistics as well as various statistical and econometric techniques (simple regression, entropy) are used. The research led to three major findings: (i) the internal migratory process is characterized by 7 historical periods, highly related to the social, economic and political phenomena that shaped the Romanian history; (ii) economic development of a county and the internal migration inflows are highly dependent; (iii) internal migration flows concentrate towards just four counties: Bucharest, Timisoara, Cluj and Constanta, leading to major agglomerations. These findings are highly valuable for the decision makers at county level.

The agro-food sector has faced several challenges since the end of World War II. This article performs an analysis of this sector from the consumer perspective. More precisely, it aims to find certain patterns in the consumption of agro-food products. In this respect, quarterly data with regard to the average consumption of the agro-food products at regional level are used. The data are provided by the Romanian National Institute of Statistics. In order to find patterns in the consumers’ behaviour, JDemetra+ version 2.2.2 was used to analyse the time series with regard to seasonal patterns and calendar effects (Trading days, Julian Easter). TRAMO-SEATS and X13 were assessed as seasonal adjustment methods for all series that showed significant seasonality. Moreover, only the automatic procedure was used in all cases. The X13 procedure provided the best results in most of the cases.

In this article we present the situation of the Romanian population suffering from severe obesity (measured using BMI), focusing on specific situations with regard to age, gender, residence, development region or educational level. The main dataset used for the current paper is extracted from the Romanian Report for 2008 European Health Interview Survey (EHIS). The sample (a representative one) consists of more than 10,000 randomly selected households. Also, the article shows the consequences of this economic and social state especially for people who have been forced to seek surgical treatment. All financial estimates regarding the obesity burden are produced at country level.

Social media tools are wide spread in web communication and are gaining popularity in the communication process between public institutions and citizens. This study conducts an analysis on how social media is used by Official Statistical Institutes to interact with citizens and disseminate information. A linear regression technique is performed to examine which social media platforms (Twitter or Facebook) is a more effective tool in the communication process in the official statistics area. Our study suggests that Twitter is a more powerful tool than Facebook in enhancing the relationship between official statistics and citizens, complying with several other studies. Next, we performed an analysis on Twitter network characteristics discussing “official statistics” using NodeXL that revealed the unexploited potential of this network by official statistical agencies.

The aim of this paper is to analyze whether higher education in Romania is a privilege or a level of education open to any person willing to pursue it, provided that they have specific abilities and competences. The analysis is carried out from two points of view both legislative and practical (using statistical methods). Based on the results, the paper further explores possible causes for the identified phenomena and formulates adequate policy recommendations. Data on the live births, the numbers of students, teachers and schooling units at each educational level, for the 1948-2011 period have been gathered in order to conduct the research; with regard to statistical methods, pursuing the purpose of this paper, the Engel Granger two steps methodology was employed.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the involvement of student organizations toward quality assurance and enhancement in higher education institutions in Romania. In order to achieve this purpose, a survey among student organizations from the main university cities in Romania has been conducted between December 2013 and May 2014. In order to analyze the results we used the frequency distribution method. One of the main findings of this paper is that there is a strong desire of a high quality education among student organizations, yet some of them do not become involved in activities contributing to quality assurance and enhancement. This paper can become a valuable tool for policy makers of the Romanian national students federations in order to design the best policies meant to encourage all the organizations participate in the quality assurance and enhancement process.

The purpose of this paper is to identify whether or not there is a long term relationship between unemployment and higher education demand in Romania. In order to achieve this purpose, I quantified the demand of higher education as the number of first year students to the number of highschool graduates. Next, I used the Engel-Granger methodology in order to examine the long term relationship. Also, a brief analysis on unemployment and the higher education area in the european context is provided. One of the main findings of the paper is that there is a long-term negative relationship between unemployment and higher education demand. Thus, encouraging the high-school graduates to pursue higher education may be a proper approach in reducing unemployment. The paper may be a valuable tool for policy makers in higher education.

In the present context, the consumption and saving patterns are subjected to change both locally and worldwide. The evidence on consumption reveals the importance of data handling and processing using the most relevant tools available. This research paper looks into official statistics data of Consumer Price Indexes (CPI) for milling and baking products and is based on seasonal adjustment. As such, JDemetra+ software is selected as officially recommended by Eurostat for seasonal adjustment. First section presents the official software recommended by Eurostat for seasonal adjustment, while section two discusses the characteristics and functionalities of the software. Furthermore, the following section presents the selected seasonal adjustment technique and describes the usage of monthly data. Section four analysing the results of all the seasonality tests for the selected series is followed next by a brief concluding remarks and observations section. Moreover, in terms of the conducted analysis, the paper examines to test JDemetra+ 3.0.0 pre-release version against JDemetra+ 2.2.4. Evidence favouring JDemetra+ 2.2.4 is obtained, the results showing that some new strategies might be needed in order to obtain better results on seasonal adjustment process using TRAMO-SEATS in JDemetra+ 3.0.0. Seasonal adjustment practitioners in official statistics should be aware and recognize the impact of statistical package selection. In this respect, optimal selection of analysis procedures is needed in the evaluation of a series and thus migrating from JDemetra+ 2.2.4 to JDemetra+ 3.0.0 is problematic without employing resources in developing appropriate strategies for improvement of the obtained results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 2022-2023 school year, about 47% of candidates were admitted to their first-choice high school, while 1.44% were not admitted to any school. This research paper explores the dynamics of Romania's educational landscape, focusing on the National Evaluation Exams in the 2022-2023 school year. The paper investigates the path of pupils who, despite obtaining passing final admission scores, were not assigned in the first admission round to an upper-secondary educational facility. Two crucial research questions guide this study: on one hand, how many of these students competed in a different county than their residential county? On the other hand, what similarities and differences exist among them in terms of performance at the National Exam and average scores in the lower-secondary educational cycle? The findings aim to shed light on the challenges and opportunities within Romania's education system.

The openness and resilience of the global research placed new terms in the post-pandemic academic world. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, a wide variety of scientific articles and research literature have been published in a short period. COVID-19 related research papers in the social sciences focused on the impact of the new disease on social, behavioral or economic outcomes. This paper aimed to explore and understand what the impact and which topics are covered in the papers about COVID-19 in Romanian social sciences ISI journals. As such, the approach highlights that performing the query by the term "covid" in seven Romanian journals indexed in the social sciences ISI database, Amfiteatru Economic registered the highest impact in terms of the number of citations per article. Moreover, most of the papers covering topics on COVID-19 were published in 2021, compared to the previous and current year. The findings also show that journals with a higher AIS and IF have a higher share of cited articles. Results presented in this study, identify as well, the word cloud diagrams for the covered topics in the title of the papers. In such regard, the most frequent words in the corpus made of titles of cited papers are teleworking, workaholism. For the uncited papers, the results suggest that more general terms are frequent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the digital revolution, data is the most valuable resource which gains in value the more it is used. Freely available open source data and institutional data repositories encourage and connect, both academia and industry. The successful use of open data in creating educational resources better prepare the students as future workforce offering specific paths targeted to a job. In terms of research, open data from the government portals ensures additional path for creation of new knowledge and reveal patterns in the data structure. Nowadays, many public administration bodies produce and collect vast quantities of high structured data. The open data initiatives of sharing the information from organizations to citizens evolve into a global phenomenon. As a result, citizens, as well as researchers are more actively engaged in policy making. Our current research paper analyses the perspective of the impact of "data.gov.ro" open data portal on academic research. The main porpose of the research is to examine and evaluate what are the characteristics of the research papers present in Google Scholar returned to the query data.gov.ro, how many of the research papers are indexed in Google Scholar are also present in Web of Science and what are their characteristics in Web of Science. Our results show that although most of the research papers have only one author and are writen in English, only 20% of the papers indexed in Google Scholar are also present in Web of Science, based on Publish or perish software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is the one of the corner-stones of a society and as long as this is not consolidated in the rural environment, nothing endures. Our research aims to explore the difference between the average score from national assessment examination and the average score in lower secondary school cycle. As such, a research variable, the “score discrepancy” is employed. The findings show that that the average score at the National Evaluation exam is lower than the average score after completing the lower-secondary educational cycle. Furthermore, the ANOVA test results for the score discrepancy in 2022 and three years before, and by year and area of residency followed by year and sex reveal that there is a statistically significant difference between the series. The results for Romania depict that more effort has to be done in the education for the rural pupils to catch up the results of their counterparts.

For EU countries, keeping and growing innovative business is vital in order to be globally competitive. Innovation in enterprises, as a cornerstone for future production, is of great significance for all countries depending more and more on services. Due to the way innovation is understood within enterprises, such process no longer is bound to single entity. It easily exceeds the sphere of one organisation rapidly evolving to an ecosystem of many actors and 3rd party suppliers and different shareholders across different countries. All these aspects reveal the link between business development, effective created value for the customers and the potential to innovate. The role of information technology both from operational perspective and in the development of innovative potential and new products is currently acknowledged both by enterprises and by small start-up companies. In such context, Eurostat introduced a new tool, “Innovation profiles”, to monitor enterprise innovation level. Thus, our paper explores such data analysing the similarities between 17 European countries. The source is Eurostat and latest data available from 2020, is used. The results of the Cluster Analysis performed in R Shiny app are obtained employing Pearson Correlation coefficient, measuring the Squared Euclidian distance, and the Ward linkage method. Positive moderate to low correlation is obtained in terms of innovation for the three obtained clusters, emphasizing the link between Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria.

Abstract Background Human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is still among the leading causes of disease burden and mortality in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and the world is not on track to meet targets set for ending the epidemic by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Precise HIV burden information is critical for effective geographic and epidemiological targeting of prevention and treatment interventions. Age- and sex-specific HIV prevalence estimates are widely available at the national level, and region-wide local estimates were recently published for adults overall. We add further dimensionality to previous analyses by estimating HIV prevalence at local scales, stratified into sex-specific 5-year age groups for adults ages 15–59 years across SSA. Methods We analyzed data from 91 seroprevalence surveys and sentinel surveillance among antenatal care clinic (ANC) attendees using model-based geostatistical methods to produce estimates of HIV prevalence across 43 countries in SSA, from years 2000 to 2018, at a 5 × 5-km resolution and presented among second administrative level (typically districts or counties) units. Results We found substantial variation in HIV prevalence across localities, ages, and sexes that have been masked in earlier analyses. Within-country variation in prevalence in 2018 was a median 3.5 times greater across ages and sexes, compared to for all adults combined. We note large within-district prevalence differences between age groups: for men, 50% of districts displayed at least a 14-fold difference between age groups with the highest and lowest prevalence, and at least a 9-fold difference for women. Prevalence trends also varied over time; between 2000 and 2018, 70% of all districts saw a reduction in prevalence greater than five percentage points in at least one sex and age group. Meanwhile, over 30% of all districts saw at least a five percentage point prevalence increase in one or more sex and age group. Conclusions As the HIV epidemic persists and evolves in SSA, geographic and demographic shifts in prevention and treatment efforts are necessary. These estimates offer epidemiologically informative detail to better guide more targeted interventions, vital for combating HIV in SSA.

Summary: Background: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted gaps in health surveillance systems, disease prevention, and treatment globally. Among the many factors that might have led to these gaps is the issue of the financing of national health systems, especially in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), as well as a robust global system for pandemic preparedness. We aimed to provide a comparative assessment of global health spending at the onset of the pandemic; characterise the amount of development assistance for pandemic preparedness and response disbursed in the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic; and examine expectations for future health spending and put into context the expected need for investment in pandemic preparedness. Methods: In this analysis of global health spending between 1990 and 2021, and prediction from 2021 to 2026, we estimated four sources of health spending: development assistance for health (DAH), government spending, out-of-pocket spending, and prepaid private spending across 204 countries and territories. We used the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s Creditor Reporting System (CRS) and the WHO Global Health Expenditure Database (GHED) to estimate spending. We estimated development assistance for general health, COVID-19 response, and pandemic preparedness and response using a keyword search. Health spending estimates were combined with estimates of resources needed for pandemic prevention and preparedness to analyse future health spending patterns, relative to need. Findings: In 2019, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, US$9·2 trillion (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 9·1–9·3) was spent on health worldwide. We found great disparities in the amount of resources devoted to health, with high-income countries spending $7·3 trillion (95% UI 7·2–7·4) in 2019; 293·7 times the $24·8 billion (95% UI 24·3–25·3) spent by low-income countries in 2019. That same year, $43·1 billion in development assistance was provided to maintain or improve health. The pandemic led to an unprecedented increase in development assistance targeted towards health; in 2020 and 2021, $1·8 billion in DAH contributions was provided towards pandemic preparedness in LMICs, and $37·8 billion was provided for the health-related COVID-19 response. Although the support for pandemic preparedness is 12·2% of the recommended target by the High-Level Independent Panel (HLIP), the support provided for the health-related COVID-19 response is 252·2% of the recommended target. Additionally, projected spending estimates suggest that between 2022 and 2026, governments in 17 (95% UI 11–21) of the 137 LMICs will observe an increase in national government health spending equivalent to an addition of 1% of GDP, as recommended by the HLIP. Interpretation: There was an unprecedented scale-up in DAH in 2020 and 2021. We have a unique opportunity at this time to sustain funding for crucial global health functions, including pandemic preparedness. However, historical patterns of underfunding of pandemic preparedness suggest that deliberate effort must be made to ensure funding is maintained. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Abstract Background Injury remains a major concern to public health in the European region. Previous iterations of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study showed wide variation in injury death and disability adjusted life year (DALY) rates across Europe, indicating injury inequality gaps between sub-regions and countries. The objectives of this study were to: 1) compare GBD 2019 estimates on injury mortality and DALYs across European sub-regions and countries by cause-of-injury category and sex; 2) examine changes in injury DALY rates over a 20 year-period by cause-of-injury category, sub-region and country; and 3) assess inequalities in injury mortality and DALY rates across the countries. Methods We performed a secondary database descriptive study using the GBD 2019 results on injuries in 44 European countries from 2000 to 2019. Inequality in DALY rates between these countries was assessed by calculating the DALY rate ratio between the highest-ranking country and lowest-ranking country in each year. Results In 2019, in Eastern Europe 80 [95% uncertainty interval (UI): 71 to 89] people per 100,000 died from injuries; twice as high compared to Central Europe (38 injury deaths per 100,000; 95% UI 34 to 42) and three times as high compared to Western Europe (27 injury deaths per 100,000; 95%UI 25 to 28). The injury DALY rates showed less pronounced differences between Eastern (5129 DALYs per 100,000; 95% UI: 4547 to 5864), Central (2940 DALYs per 100,000; 95% UI: 2452 to 3546) and Western Europe (1782 DALYs per 100,000; 95% UI: 1523 to 2115). Injury DALY rate was lowest in Italy (1489 DALYs per 100,000) and highest in Ukraine (5553 DALYs per 100,000). The difference in injury DALY rates by country was larger for males compared to females. The DALY rate ratio was highest in 2005, with DALY rate in the lowest-ranking country (Russian Federation) 6.0 times higher compared to the highest-ranking country (Malta). After 2005, the DALY rate ratio between the lowest- and the highest-ranking country gradually decreased to 3.7 in 2019. Conclusions Injury mortality and DALY rates were highest in Eastern Europe and lowest in Western Europe, although differences in injury DALY rates declined rapidly, particularly in the past decade. The injury DALY rate ratio of highest- and lowest-ranking country declined from 2005 onwards, indicating declining inequalities in injuries between European countries.

Summary: Background: Mental health is a public health issue for European young people, with great heterogeneity in resource allocation. Representative population-based studies are needed. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019 provides internationally comparable information on trends in the health status of populations and changes in the leading causes of disease burden over time. Methods: Prevalence, incidence, Years Lived with Disability (YLDs) and Years of Life Lost (YLLs) from mental disorders (MDs), substance use disorders (SUDs) and self-harm were estimated for young people aged 10-24 years in 31 European countries. Rates per 100,000 population, percentage changes in 1990-2019, 95% Uncertainty Intervals (UIs), and correlations with Sociodemographic Index (SDI), were estimated. Findings: In 2019, rates per 100,000 population were 16,983 (95% UI 12,823 – 21,630) for MDs, 3,891 (3,020 - 4,905) for SUDs, and 89·1 (63·8 - 123·1) for self-harm. In terms of disability, anxiety contributed to 647·3 (432–912·3) YLDs, while in terms of premature death, self-harm contributed to 319·6 (248·9–412·8) YLLs, per 100,000 population. Over the 30 years studied, YLDs increased in eating disorders (14·9%;9·4-20·1) and drug use disorders (16·9%;8·9-26·3), and decreased in idiopathic developmental intellectual disability (–29·1%;23·8-38·5). YLLs decreased in self-harm (–27·9%;38·3-18·7). Variations were found by sex, age-group and country. The burden of SUDs and self-harm was higher in countries with lower SDI, MDs were associated with SUDs. Interpretation: Mental health conditions represent an important burden among young people living in Europe. National policies should strengthen mental health, with a specific focus on young people. Funding: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Statistical data, at a low aggregate level and with high frequency, is an essential tool for business decision makers. One example in this respect is monthly data on exports and imports in thousands of EUR, at county level, provided by the National Institute of Statistics Romania. This data is not offered in a seasonally adjusted form, although most of it exhibits seasonality. This paper proposes a simple and cost-free methodology to seasonally adjust these data, making it more suitable for business decision.