What it is
Cluj Innovation Days (CID) is the flagship yearly conference of Cluj IT Cluster in Cluj-Napoca. The organiser describes it as an event for encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship and for building collaborations across industries and sectors. The 2026 edition, the 14th, took place on 28 and 29 May at the Radisson Blu hotel and was built around one theme: the skills people and organisations need in the AI era. The event site reported that it was fully booked.
How the programme works
The format has two parts. A day of satellite events comes first, followed by the main conference.
In 2026 the satellite day on 28 May was run largely by DIH4Society, the digital innovation hub for North-West Romania led by Cluj IT Cluster. Its workshops, held only in Romanian, included impact stories from small firms, Cluj County Council and a Cluj-Napoca hospital, followed by brokerage and matchmaking sessions between organisations and IT suppliers. The same day had an AI workshop for social enterprises, which needed separate confirmation, and a testathon for SKILLAB, an EU research project building an open-source tool for matching skills supply and demand.
The main conference on 29 May was held in the hotel ballroom, with keynotes and panels on how AI changes work, learning and public policy. One panel, “AI for Society: Opportunities, Risks, and Skills Europe Needs”, included a Romanian state secretary for investments and European projects. The full agenda is still online.
What came out of past editions
The clearest lasting result is DIH4Society itself. It was launched at CID 2023, which ran from 24 to 26 May that year. According to Cluj IT Cluster, the hub, run with the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, the Bistrița-Năsăud Chamber of Commerce and the University of Oradea, was set to distribute close to 4 million euro over three years as digital transformation services for manufacturing SMEs, public institutions and healthcare organisations. In 2026 the satellite day included a session on the hub’s next phase, DIH4Society 2.0.
Why it matters for cities
CID is one of the few places where Cluj’s local government, universities and IT firms sit on the same programme. For officials elsewhere it shows how a regional cluster can use an annual event to launch and then follow up an EU-funded digital hub. For readers of the Cluj-Napoca profile, it is the local counterpart to the city’s story of tech-led renewal. Another Cluj fixture is DevTalks Cluj-Napoca, held each September.
Going, or following from home
Dates for 2027 have not been announced, and we could not find ticket prices published. The 2026 edition filled up, so register early once the call opens. The site’s satellite events page shows how limited some sessions are.