The first objective of the paper is to offer a synthetic account of the main research coordinates of scientific literature on poverty in Romania. In this respect, three main stages are distinguished: (i) accumulation of expertise at the national level with a divergence of methodologies and approaches being developed (ii) the temporary consensual adoption of the absolute poverty line; and (iii) the official alignment to the European relative poverty lines in parallel with a new mix of approaches: a social development-oriented approach, concurrently with the study of poverty and extreme poverty at the territorial and community level. The second main objective is to look at the level and dynamic of poverty in Romania using the most important measurement methodologies in order to establish linkages between poverty research and the actual situation and to stress research needs in the following period.