The government spent €11.9 million on research and development last year, up 4.4 per cent over the previous year, the National Statistics Office said.

Labour costs accounted for 72.5 per cent of total R&D expenditure, while 22.3 per cent consisted of recurrent expenditure. The remaining 5.2 per cent went into capital projects.

Split by scientific fields, expenditure on social sciences accounted for 29.1 per cent of the total whereas money spent on engineering, technology and medical services represented 17.8 per cent of the total in every case.

The University of Malta carried out 84.9 per cent of all R&D conducted on the island last year.

Almost 85 per cent of R&D funding was raised locally, the remaining coming from foreign sources, such as the European Commission.

In 2009, 954 employees were engaged in this sector, 890 of whom worked part-time. There was a predominance of men among PhD researchers and technicians while women prevailed among support staff.