Although enhancing previous results, partnerships and projects, and benefiting from a synergy of funds (e.g. national funds - project EXIST, DELICE) this infrastructure was boosted in 2009 by a 2.43mil EUR Norway Grant (STVES 115266) project, co-financed (0.44 mil EUR) by the  National Authority for Scientific Research. Together with the Norwegian Institute for Air Research and 6 excellent research institutions in Romania (the 5 from ROLINET plus the \"Horia Hulubei\" National Institute for Nuclear Physics), we set up a modern observatory to study the composition, dynamics and physics of the atmosphere: new or improved buildings, new and upgraded instruments, and new or better trained scientists at the 5 stations in Romania.

RADO started as a dream, but very soon it became a reality. It took us less than 3 years, but also many white nights, to build up 5 new remote sensing laboratories in Magurele, Baneasa, Iasi, Timisoara and Cluj-Napoca, a Data Center where meta-data are stored and analyzed, and a Science Center where children and students can learn in an interactive way about the atmosphere, green energy and optics. The building hosting the Data Center and the Science Center was entirely designed and built in one year, after a difficult and sometimes hopeless struggle to obtain the co-financing  during the economical crisis affecting not only Romania, but the entire world. Two weeks before the official opening, we were planting trees and flowers around the Observatory, testing video and internet transmission chains, arranging furniture. Nevertheless, the great achievement of this project was the team of young scientists who grew during field campaigns, workshops and hard work. This team is now prepared to follow the dream.

What is special about this observatory?  Well, it hosts a lot of state-of-the-art research instruments (such as lidars, sunphotometers, microwave radiometers), which provide us information not only about the air near the ground, but also about the upper layers of the atmosphere. Contrary to general believe, what we experience here, on Earth, is the cumulate effect of many processes which happen at different altitudes.