The first activity performed within the FP7-Project PRO WOOD was a Fact-Finding Analysis concerning the present state and needs of the wood industry sector in the Brasov-Covasna region. Based on a questionnaire developed by ZENIT GmbH (Germany), the interview was conducted by Transilvania University-Faculty of Wood Industry in the Brasov region and by ASIMCOV in the Covasna region. The questionnaire was distributed to a total number of 237 enterprises, out of which 102 responded. The responders are mainly furniture producers from Covasna region, but also timber manufacturers and various providers for tools, machines, adhesives, lacquers etc. from both regions.

The questionnaire included questions concerning:
1. Infrastructure
          - IT solutions (web presence, E-mail, high speed internet, E-commerce);
          - means of transportation;
          - technical endowment.
2. Human Resources
          - recruiting facilities;
          - recruiting difficulties, both for academic and non-academic staff.
3. Networking Activities
          - institutions for collaboration;
          - affiliation to an association;
          - activities at international scale.
4. Business Environment
          - distribution markets;
          - service providers - existing and needed;
          - support concerning business start-ups.
5. Research and Development
          - interest concerning active involvement in R&D project;
          - fields of cooperation with R&D institutions      
          - present and desired.
6. Public Authorities
          - present role and expectations.
7. Interest in becoming a member of the Wood Cluster.

The results of the questionnaire can be summarised as follows:
1. Infrastructure
          - with regard to IT-solutions (Fig. 1), most of the responders are using E-mail, whereas a web page of the company cannot be taken for granted; nearly 2/3 of the companies use IT solutions for administrative purposes; E-commerce is of nearly no interest;

          - with regard to the transportation issue, most of the respondents (over 50%) are satisfied with the transportation system, whereas only 1/4 of the respondents consider it insufficient;
          - considering that the main means of transportation used are trucks (93%), over 40% of the respondents asked for more and better roads, as well as better connections between roads;
existing technical/manufacturing equipment was rated as sufficient by 50% of the respondents.
2. Human Resources
          - when recruiting employees (academic as well as non-academic) (Fig. 2), newspaper ads, the Internet and special agencies are used; nearly no recruiting activities take place by means of networking (e.g. between companies);
   

          - the respondents have more problems recruiting non-academic staff than academicals. Nevertheless it is not easy to find qualified staff.
3. Networking Activities
          - most respondents are collaborating with the chambers of commerce in Brasov and Covasna;
          - nearly half of the respondents are not a member in any association;
          - international activities have a quite traditional motivation: import, export and fairs (Fig. 3).

4. Business Environment
          - the respondents mainly supply the regional and the national market;
          - financial services and legal consultancy (Fig. 4) are the main demanded services by the respondents;

          - services that would be needed and do not exist so far are special insurances (for transport, clients, export etc.);
          - services that the respondents would like to make use of are: advertising/marketing, technology           - transfer, research & development, training for technical consultants;
          - asked about the existence of any support for business start-ups, 90% of the respondents answered no.
5. Research and Development
          - the collaboration with research institutions or universities hardly exists; more than one third are not interested in an R&D activity;
          - the main cooperation fields the respondents could imagine are product development, environmentalism, service improvement and process automation (Fig. 5);
          - the financial means to cooperate in a research project are very low, more than 50% could not afford a participation.

6. Public Authorities
          - these seem not to play an important role; many of the respondents qualify them as braking factor for business development;
          - half of the respondents would expect more support from public bodies: legal regulations have to be applied more strictly, specialists for market control should be professionals, fiscal incentives should be lowered for producing enterprises, enterprises should be checked for their opinion when changing their working environment (like infrastructure) et al.
7. Interest in becoming a member of the Wood Cluster.
          - the expressed demand for activities in PRO WOOD mainly compass funding advice, qualification and the search for networking partners; the demand for research projects is represented by the fewest (Fig. 6);

          - basically, an attitude of cooperation with PRO WOOD exists and a contribution to activities within PRO WOOD is conceivable for most responders.

According to the obtained results, the following weaknesses could be pointed out, shaping thus the spectrum of activities of the future cluster:
          - low utilization of IT solutions;
          - bad roads and connections between roads;
          - poor qualification of non-academic staff;
          - low membership in association;
          - need for product diversification and export of products with higher added value;
          - reluctance in participating to R&D projects;
          - lack of strategic planning;
          - low support of business start-ups;
          - mistrust between business and administration.

          The demands of the wood sector in regions Brasov and Covasna are to be further investigated within four peer-review workshops focussed on the four "hottest" topics revealed by the questionnaire:
          - Education (non-academic staff);
          - nformation Techologies (and their utilization for promotion purposes);
          - Research and Business Cooperation;
          - Sales and Marketing.
          Based on the knowledge acummulated from these two investigation procedures, the project consortium will establish the activities to be carried out in future so as to meet the main demands required by the wood industry sector in the Brasov-Covasna region.