Given that about 76,000 children are eligible for children's allowance it is calculated that every year around 5,000 students should be eligible for tertiary education. To attract the best of these students, the University will have to compete with other tertiary institutions such as the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST), in addition to competition from universities abroad as well as foreign universities who already have or will have a foothold on the island.
With the incentive recently announced in the 2008 Budget that stipends are to be paid also to students carrying out studies in other European countries, the University will have increased competition from foreign universities to attract Maltese prospective students.
On the other side of the coin the University also has an interest in attracting foreign students. It is important to ensure that we attract the best students from abroad, not those who were denied entry to other universities.
Our University must be seen to offer rich rewards to those selected to join it. The medical school is known to have always attracted a significant number of foreign students. It is important to ensure that it not only keeps doing so but that the standards are continuously improved to ensure an even better inflow of bright, possibly fee-paying students to our university. To achieve this, again, the University has to compete successfully with other universities.
During a graduation ceremony oration Prof. Joseph Grima from the Faculty of Science said that research is a key, if not the key, role of any modern university, and that our research output is probably the most important deliverable that attracts students. Universities are everywhere considered as institutions of higher learning and research. Prof. Grima said that the University is now facing the challenge to develop its tradition as a teaching institution and act as a focal point of research and innovation.
The University must maintain and continue to build up its research ability. Rector Prof. Juanito Camilleri, speaking recently at a breakfast meeting organised by the Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST) on research and development, emphasised that we are now beyond encouraging postgraduate research just to assist current researchers in their work. He said we are now at a stage where the recruitment of post-doctoral fellows to carry out research projects should become a regular exercise and not an exception.
Funds are now urgently required to support adequate research and possibly attract other universities of international repute to carry out research in mutually beneficially teamwork with the University. Research, particularly in the sciences, requires such collaboration and teamwork, Prof. Grima said, and this area needs to be promoted and developed if we wish to strengthen our research base.
One such possibility is to team up with research institutions who also wish to set up a base in Malta. Our University academics are already closely collaborating with the research and development carried out by local industry, such as the pharmaceutical sector. It is good to see that this year the funds allocated by MCST will be earmarked to enhance such research collaborations between industry and the University.
Prof. Grima concluded in his oration by stating that our University structures should be flexible enough to respond adequately to such collaborative research work both within and across faculties, institutes and centres, to ensure that no research opportunities or resources are lost. The Faculty of Medicine and Surgery is a good example where a substantial amount of collaboration in research activities takes place between departments and even with other faculties - an example of teamwork that should be taken up by other faculties and institutions.
The University needs to remove the excessive bureaucracy involved to use research funds, especially when it comes to recruiting temporary staff. Heads of department and directors of institutes must be given more authority to take urgent recruitment decisions. Otherwise there is a risk that either deadlines to use grants may expire, or that persons identified and willing to come to the University (at a fraction of the salary offered in other employment positions) may give up and take up more financially rewarding positions with government, industry or a foreign institutions.
The very recent appointment of an able, experienced human resources director and the sustaining of the University's finance, legal and administrative units should contribute in a no small way towards reducing exasperating bureaucracy. We eagerly wait for early results. We are sure that the present rector would excel at the priority task of streamlining activities and establishing a one-shop office to put into action whatever is needed to promote research.