Needing more innovation

One of the areas that seems to require a great deal of attention in Malta is the issue of innovation. In fact this is an area where we are being told that we are lagging behind other members of the European Union, in particular within the framework of the Lisbon Agenda (the EU strategy that is meant to increase the competitiveness of firms operating within the EU with a view to achieving sustained economic growth and employment). Within the context of the Lisbon Agenda, reference is made to research and development that takes place within the EU member states.

All this may sound very strange, as I have always felt that it is more than legitimate to ask whether it is true that so little R&D takes place in this country, as is being reported. Is there really such little creativity in firms operating here? And the consequence of little R&D and little creativity leads to little innovation. Yet we pride ourselves that the father of creative thinking is Maltese.

In effect I strongly believe that in our manufacturing plants there is a great deal of innovation taking place, be it in processes, be it in the use of materials, be it in the customisation of equipment, and so on. I also believe that within our IT sector (which is thriving and getting stronger) there is also a great deal of innovation taking place, as evidenced by the fact that a number of Maltese companies now operate within the international market and are servicing international customers.

It could well be that several of these innovations are not registered here in Malta. It may also well be that the R&D that takes place at the University of Malta goes unnoticed as is the work done by young people within the context of initiatives such as Young Enterprise.

So I feel we need to find a way how to capture the innovation that takes place in this country. An important spurt is also being given by Malta Enterprise through one of its programmes targeted at SMEs and funded through the European Union. There are also fiscal incentives aimed at promoting R&D activities in Malta. Moreover the National Minimum Curriculum talks of the need to inculcate in our students a sense of entrepreneurship. Hence all the good intentions are there.

However, in spite of such good intentions and in spite of the fact that there is more innovation taking place in this country than is officially recognised, we still need to ask ourselves why we do not have more of it. Could it be that we have found ourselves in a comfort zone and we are finding it difficult to get out of it, in the sense that we are not recognising the need for more innovation for our economy to thrive and maintain strong growth?

It could be that as yet our economy has not been punished for failure in having more innovation and creativity. At the end of the day, one does appreciate that using public funds in encouraging innovation and creativity is a risk that may not always pay off. Thus there can always be something more urgent and something more tangible that requires those funds that would otherwise have been used on R&D.

In effect this conservative approach has meant that, when there are downswings in the economy as a result of international events, these are not as severe as they are in other countries such as Singapore (the comparison is done in purpose). On the other hand, when there is the take off, the growth rates achieved by the Singaporean economy are also much greater than ours. It may be that we are happy with this trade off, and hence innovation is low down in our economic priorities.

It could also be that we do not yet understand how to value innovation and how it can contribute to our economic growth in a concrete way. A lot of people talk about the need for innovation, for more R&D, for more creativity. However, there is very little talk of how such innovation can create jobs, how it can contribute to GDP growth.

Researchers at the university are very often left very much to their own whims, while private companies would rather not share any of the R & D that they do.

We speak a great deal about the need to create links between private business and the University. However, we seek to create this link for the wrong reasons - jobs. It would be much better of we create such links to enhance our creative skills, our capacity to innovate. The jobs will then look after themselves.

It may be that in this country there is not the inspirational spark that lights up the flame of innovation and creativity, like there is in Silicon Valley or in North East Italy. This may be seen from the fact that a number of Maltese who feel that they have something special to contribute would rather go abroad and make their contribution abroad than do it here.

Is not this a lesson, not so much for politicians, but more for all those in the public sector in whose responsibility it is to stimulate more innovation and more creativity? The country must create more jobs and we need more innovation and creativity to do this!