Romania will continue to be actively involved in the areas of UNESCO's mandate, including by intensifying collaboration with the organisation and its member states, learning from good practices to build a future of peace, security and sustainability, according to Romania's Minister of Education and Research Daniel David.

David is participating, October 30 - November 2, 2025, as head of the Romanian delegation, in the 43rd session of the UNESCO General Conference, which takes place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, according to the Ministry of Education and Research.

In his national speech delivered to the event on Sunday, David reconfirmed Romania's commitment to remaining firmly dedicated to supporting and promoting UNESCO's agenda in all areas of competence: education, science, culture and communication.

'Romania will continue to be actively involved in the areas of UNESCO's mandate, including by intensifying collaboration with the organisation and its member states, learning from good practices to build a future of peace, security and sustainability, and by running for the Executive Board elections (November 2025),' David is quoted as saying in a press statement.

In the message, the minister also presented his vision on education and science, noting that 'modern societies are knowledge-based societies' and 'knowledge is generated through research (science) and is disseminated through education and culture, with communication also having a fundamental role in dissemination.'

David said that there are three major vulnerabilities that threaten the knowledge-based society today, vulnerabilities diagnosed and curatively addressed by the QX Report, including functional illiteracy, 'cyber-physical' integration and information accessibility.

'Functional illiteracy allows the infiltration of pseudoscience, generating conspiracies, extremist approaches that put the social fabric at risk and nullify the value of truth, thus becoming the potentially deadly virus of the knowledge-based society, a risk to national security. Functional illiteracy must be confronted both directly, through remedial processes, and indirectly, through quality educational processes.'

Daniel David also said that 'cyber-physical integration and the accessibility of information, for example through the Internet and social networks, as fundamental aspects of the Fifth Industrial Revolution that civilisation is currently going through, open spaces for both science and pseudoscience.'

'It is important that science is actively integrated into these spaces, while blocking pseudoscience, both through formal, non-formal and informal education. For example, information becomes knowledge through a correct critical analysis of it, so that critical thinking becomes a transversal phenomenon of modern education.'

According to David, people, increasingly emancipated today, expect another kind of social institutions, in which they will have a role in co-creating the decisions that will affect them.

'In this sense, the 'citizen science' approach and the approach of education-science in complex ecosystems are the ways to follow, but wisely, without reducing the rigor of science, but bringing the citizen into the culture of science and without cancelling the distinct educational roles (e.g.: student vs. teacher vs. parent vs. local authorities vs. society),' David added.

On the same occasion, the minister congratulated ambassador Simona-Mirela Miculescu on the end of her tenure at the presidency of the 42nd session of the General Conference, as she is the first Romanian woman diplomat and the fifth woman in the history of UNESCO in this position.

'Under her tenure, ambassador Simona-Mirela Miculescu emphasised strengthening UNESCO's role at the international level and initiated the largest digitisation programme in the history of the organisation, dedicated to transforming the UNESCO archives into a globally accessible heritage,' according to the ministry.

Dan mentioned the main UNESCO sites in Romania and welcomed the recent inclusion of Bistrita in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network . AGERPRES (RO - editing by: Alina Novaceanu; EN - writing by: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu)