Malta ranks below average in EU innovation scoreboard

Malta is performing below EU average in innovation, with its main weaknesses being a shortage of qualified human resources and low levels of public and private investment in research and development.

“Malta’s public investment in R&D was less than half the EU average in 2010. Although better... private investment is also relatively low when compared to what is happening in the other member states,” a European Commission official said.

The lack of quality Maltese workers is due mostly to the average low level of education when compared to the rest of the EU, according to the latest study on the subject.

Malta ranked as a “moderate innovator” in the study that divided the 27 member states in four categories: innovation leaders; innovation followers; moderate innovators and modest innovators.

Its performance last year was described as moderate and below EU average, together with Italy, Portugal, Greece and Spain.

Some of the countries that joined the EU with Malta in 2004, and are also rather small, have scored better in innovation. These include Cyprus and Estonia, which ranked in the innovation followers category.

According to the EU study, which gauges the performance of the 27 member states according to 25 innovation indicators and compares the situation with that in other big economies such as the US, Japan and China – the best innovator countries in 2010 were Sweden followed by Denmark, Finland and Germany.

The EU as a whole is performing badly when compared to other economies, particularly the US and Japan, considered to be the world’s innovation leaders.

International comparisons in the scoreboard show the EU lags behind the US and Japan in public-private co-publications, business R&D expenditure, and, with respect to the gap with Japan, in patent cooperation treaty patents. The Commission said this meant improving the exploitation of research results by the business sector, in particular through a more efficient patent system, was key to raising the innovation performance.

The particularly important and rapidly increasing lag in licence and patent revenues from abroad showed the EU produced fewer high-impact patents (relative to GDP) than the US and Japan and that it was not positioning itself effectively in the sectors where world demand was strongest.

Overall, the EU as a whole is still maintaining its lead over India and Russia. However, it is losing its innovation lead over Brazil. China is also rapidly narrowing its innovation performance gap with the EU.

“The scoreboard shows we need to step up our efforts in making Europe more innovative to catch up with our main competitors and recover the path of robust and sustainable growth,” the European Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, Antonio Tajani, said.

“We are in a state of emergency,” he warned, reiterating that innovation was as essential to a successful modern economy as water was to life.

“It is at the core of economic policymaking and the main way economies generate jobs. We want member states to make full use of this scoreboard, build on their strengths and address weaknesses,” he said.

Meanwhile, Labour Party spokesman for research and higher education Owen Bonnici said innovation, as a means of pushing the economy forward, was not being given enough priority by the government.

Dr Bonnici called on the government to improve accessibility to funding for research and innovation, particularly in the case of education and small businesses.

This would ensure innovative ideas would transform themselves into products and services that would strengthen the economy, he said, referring to the EU’s scoreboard that showed Malta’s innovation rate fell below the EU average.