Poor R&D record by local councils

Out of a total of 148 respondents in a survey carried out by the National Statistics Office (NSO) to measure government research and development (R&D), only 13 or 8.8 per cent said they were actively engaged in such projects.

The NSO carried out the survey in the third quarter of last year and the reference year for the analysis was 2002.

While the best response rate was observed in the extra budgetary units sub-sector, where seven out of a total of 57 respondents (or 12.3 per cent) were engaged in R&D activities, the worst response rate was set by the local councils at just two (or 4.2 per cent) of the aggregate number of local council respondents (48) confirming the adoption of R&D activities.

By far most employees in R&D are part-timers. The NSO said that information from the questionnaires showed that out of 251 employees, 235 or 93.6 per cent are part-timers.

The aggregate ratio of PhD researchers compared to the total number of employees is 2.4 per cent (or six PhD researchers out of 251 employees).

During the course of 2002, Lm327,774 were spent on R&D.

Most of this expense was incurred on labour costs, accounting for 62.4 per cent (Lm202,996) of the current expenditure for the year. Capital expenditure during the year under review was negligible, amounting to just Lm2,500.

During the reference year, the government ministries and departments sub-sector had nine R&D projects under way, with a budgeted total outlay estimated at over Lm2 million. The bulk of this outlay was budgeted by the Fisheries Conservation Control Division, which was working in close partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation as well as with EU member states.

Other substantial projects were also under way at the Ministry of Education, with the main partners here being the University of Malta and the Malta University Services, with input by the National Statistics Office and Eurostat.

No on-going projects were reported by local councils, while the extra budgetary units sub-sector was engaged in five minor projects budgeted at Lm2,400.

The share of the total R&D expenditure by the general government sector, as a percentage of the GDP (year 2002 - at current market prices), stands at a negligible level of 0.02 per cent, the NSO said.