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Even if the social economy is an emergent sector in Romania, advancing social impact measurement and management becomes imperative for public authorities and the whole society to understand how much positive social change can be attributed to the social economy organizations, especially those active in the social services field. The main objective of this paper is to systematically review and analyse the first fragile attempts of social impact approach and measurement in Romania. Applicative research will be carried out in a social economy organization active in the social services field to understand the current challenges of measuring and managing social impact faced by social economy organizations. The article concludes with an in-depth discussion and a set of recommendations for developing a more effective national impact measurement framework better calibrated to the social and solidarity economy realities, particularly considering the social services field.

The European Union declared the year 2009 – The Year of Creativity and Innovation. Creativity and innovation can move society forward toward prosperity. In this context, we analyzed in our paper the innovation, research & development potential and performance of the Romanian enterprises. After presenting the conceptual framework and statistical sources in EU for innovation and a general overview of Europe seen as a place for research activities, we examined in details the Romania case: a country still in the group of catching-up countries, but one of the growth leaders among this group. In the last part of the paper we focused on research and development data analysis for the 2003-2008 interval, at enterprise level, also with commentaries about the economic and financial crisis impact.