METIC brings together Maltese, Sicilian businesses

A delegation of 20 Sicilian businessman headed by Confindustria Sicilia president Dr Ivan Lo Bello and including Dr Salerno, Dr Montante, Dr Catanzaro, Dr Grippalidi and Dr Culcasi, presidents of Confindustria Palermo, Caltanissetta, Agrigento, Enna and Trapani respectively, with Professor Liguori from the University of Palermo, attended a meeting organised by the Malta Federation of Industry and Consorzio Med Europe Export.

This event, with a number of one-to-one meetings, served as a follow up to last month's visit to Agrigento where 150 Sicilian stakeholders from both industry and academia met a delegation of 32 Maltese industrialists and researchers.

Both the Federation's visit to Agrigento and this week's progress meeting are activities organised through METIC (Mediterranean Trading and Innovation Centre), an Interreg IIIA project aiming to stimulate business and research initiatives between Maltese and Sicilian industrial and academic stakeholders.

To this aim, the major project partners, the University of Palermo (project co-ordinator), FOI, University of Malta and Confindustria Sicilia, have organised various workshops inviting actors within the project trust areas.

These areas, chosen for their high potential for development, are alternative energy sources, urban regeneration, waste water treatment and municipal waste management, tele-medicine and e-learning, agriculture and aquaculture.

This week's event proved that the stakeholders in this project did not only expand in the number of businesses and university academics participating, but also in the organisations interested in the concept of channeling the knowledge in academia to industrial innovation. In fact, a number of Malta-based organisations answered the call of FOI to attend this progress meeting. These organisations included the Malta Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise, EuroMedITI, MCAST, MCST, Malta Enterprise, the Maltese-Italian Chamber of Commerce. The recurrent theme mentioned by all participating representatives can be seminarised in three words - business-driven research.

At this progress meeting, FOI director general Wilfred Kenely said that the positive effect reaped through the consolidated link between university and industry could serve as a platform for future co-operation projects under the various local and European Programmes. Mr Kenely insisted that the challenge and opportunity to be undertaken by all METIC participants is now that of developing their research idea through collaboration with a Sicilian or Maltese business operator or academic partner into a workable project to tap innovative markets in the Mediterranean basin.

Hence, in order to rise to the challenge, the policy implications for an organisation's strategy should be based on the concept of excelling in niche areas through the transfer of knowledge, know-how and do-how.