In 1973 he applied for retirement, continuing his activity as a leading part-time scientific researcher; in 1977, following a reorganization, he was transferred to the Institute of Physics and Materials Technology, and after a year his employment contract was terminated.

Radu Grigorovici made original contributions to the physics of electric gas discharges, flame spectral analysis, light sources, physiological and instrumental optics, size systems and physical-physiological units.

Grigorovici and collaborators studied the structure, electrical transport, optical properties and photoconductivity in amorphous layers of germanium, silicon and carbon obtained by vacuum evaporation.

These works brought international fame to the Grigorovici group, and to its initiator the recognition as a founding mentor of a Romanian research school in this field.

The results were disseminated at international conferences and summer schools, in synthesis articles and monographs, were quoted extensively and had the appreciation of physicists of Nevill Francis Mott level.

After the dismemberment of the Soviet empire, he initiated a sustained dialogue with the Romanians of Bukovina;[5] published, in bilingual Romanian/German edition, a volume of studies and documents about Bucovina.