The political climate seems to be improving under the new government in Romania, but the country’s research is still hampered by the Romanian Academy’s outdated regulations. These discourage Romanian citizens who have pursued careers abroad from returning to many institutes — including to the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy (AIRA) in Bucharest. As an astronomer of Romanian origin working in Spain, I urge the government to persuade the Romanian Academy to reform its regulations and open up its research to its citizens working abroad and to scientists from the rest of the European Union.

There are no graduate astronomy departments in Romanian universities and the country has no useful observatories. When senior astronomers retire, there is no one to replace them because the bright young astrophysicists have all decamped abroad.

Although the academy announced in 2016 that its doors are open to EU researchers, jobs are advertised only in Romanian. Researchers wishing to return home must have their foreign PhD qualifications validated in Romania; they are then graded according to their previous Romanian employment.

Foreign candidates and citizens who trained abroad are excluded from senior research positions. For example, a high-grade post in astrophysics recently went to a home-grown researcher from another discipline. The academy’s arcane rulings must be scrapped if Romania is to compete in international science.