Romania is not a very rich country (GDP/Capita under $15k, around 20% of the US).
Romania is not a very large country (19m people, around 6% of the US).
There are not a very large number of EAs in Romania.
There are no ‘special’ reasons to think Romania is unusually important.
(all statistics from Google).
I think the above probably basically fully explains Romania’s relative ranking, compared to other countries and regions. Then there are individual team-specific (not country-specific) reasons like the social skills and conscientiousness of the potential organiser, and the threshold for funding, which determines how far along the list of potential groups the funding goes. I think you’re right that in the past people have made (at least ex post) misleading statements about how plentiful funding is.
Finally, I think you are over-updating on your conversation; it seems like a stretch to me to imply that someone at CEA suggested the problem was the poor behavior of Romanian immigrants to the UK.
My guess is the answer is basically:
Romania is not a very rich country (GDP/Capita under $15k, around 20% of the US).
Romania is not a very large country (19m people, around 6% of the US).
There are not a very large number of EAs in Romania.
There are no ‘special’ reasons to think Romania is unusually important.
(all statistics from Google).
I think the above probably basically fully explains Romania’s relative ranking, compared to other countries and regions. Then there are individual team-specific (not country-specific) reasons like the social skills and conscientiousness of the potential organiser, and the threshold for funding, which determines how far along the list of potential groups the funding goes. I think you’re right that in the past people have made (at least ex post) misleading statements about how plentiful funding is.
Finally, I think you are over-updating on your conversation; it seems like a stretch to me to imply that someone at CEA suggested the problem was the poor behavior of Romanian immigrants to the UK.