Engineering without licencing under socialism: Industrial learning and dependent development in Romania’s chemical industry

This article investigates how Romania developed synthetic fibre production capacities under socialism by engaging with Western engineering firms while circumventing formal licencing regimes. Focusing on the Săvinești platform (1959–1989), it reconstructs four distinct modes of industrial learning, operational, engineering-replicative, design-based, and embedded cooperation, shaped by Cold War constraints and export imperatives. Drawing on technical documentation, patent data, and oral histories, the study shows how Romania leveraged partial technology access to expand production, despite structural exclusions from intellectual property regimes. The findings contribute to debates on global business history by revealing how socialist states developed hybrid strategies of technological upgrading in the semi-periphery, navigating dependence through engineering intermediation and institutional improvisation.