Innovation-driven growth

The renewed drive at European level to promote innovation-driven growth with the launch of the EU2020 Strategy and the Innovation Union initiative comes at a time when most governments are facing the continuing impact of the financial and economic crisis.

Governments are having to identify the means to develop more proactive innovation policies while facing substantial cuts in public spending.

Yet in growing recognition of the critical importance of research and innovation for economic growth and competitiveness, and to counteract the effects of the crisis, investments need to be sustained at least at their current levels.

In view of this, in 2010 and 2011 the government decided not only to maintain current levels of spending but to increase the government spend on research and innovation.

This is reflected in the budget for the National R&I Programme over last year’s levels that funds industry-academia collaborative projects which in turn stimulate industry investments in research and innovation and are leading to the generation of intellectual property, prototypes, and publications.

The programme is now turning into an important phase of assessing what results have potential for commercialisation and what is required to put this into action.

Funding is one element, but a more fundamental input for R&I is human capital, which drives the whole creative process from the inception of an idea all the way through to market.

The government has been investing in a targeted way to encourage and support postgraduate studies and doctoral research in national priorities areas of research and innovation (as identified in the National R&I Strategy 2007-2010). Research and training visits to leading research facilities are also being supported in an effort to integrate our young people into the European and international research community.

This investment is critical since the absorption of our leading researchers in ongoing projects often means they are unable to take up new opportunities – these need to be taken up by young researchers. Our researchers also deserve appropriate research facilities and laboratories and a major investment in upgrading university laboratories is underway using EU Structural Funds.

This reflects a major national coordination of effort across ministries and entities to provide the enabling conditions for our researchers to thrive and excel (as they do) at international level.

These considerable efforts take time to be reflected in international rankings and scoreboards. Malta is still in catch-up mode compared with other European countries since the culture for research and innovation takes time to take root and flourish.

However, the latest Innovation Scoreboard again highlights the fact that Malta leads in terms of the progress being made, despite our small size and the fact that the indicators often do not capture the realities of a small country relating to difficulties in achieving critical mass and economies of scale, even in niche areas of research and innovation.

The National R&I Strategy 2011-2020 will build on the important work and initiatives undertaken to date and will also seek to find ways of offsetting the small size constraints. Work is already underway to launch a consultation process with key stakeholders toaddress key pillars including innovation, human capital, infrastructures, international cooperation and funding.

In the past two years, despite the financial crisis, the national research fund managed by the Malta Council for Science and Technology has increased significantly. The fund now stands at €1.1 million, i.e. an increase of 57 per cent in just one year.

To date, Malta has already supported over 30 research projects and is now starting to reap the results. One example is MarcoCremona’s research in collaboration with the Department of Public Health and Island Hotels Group, which involved developing an innovative wastewater recycling process for hotels.

Another example is Prof. Joseph Grima and the research team at University and Methode Electronics, who have produced an innovative auxetic material that expands rather than contracts when stretched. Both these projects were funded through the national funds of the Malta Council for Science and Technology and both these projects received international recognition.

Malta has again recently been mentioned in the international news and was singled out by the Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, due to the success of our Agriculture and Fisheries Regulation Department in the FP7 SELFDOTT project, in which Maltese researchers and their collaborators managed to reproduce captive blue fin tuna for the first time in history.

The National Contact Organisation for the EU 7th Framework Programme (FP7) is the Malta Council for Science and Technology. This EU programme was the funding source of SELFDOTT and provides a source of competitive funding for local researchers in industry, academia and the public sector. This €50 billion EU fund has enormous potential and Malta has already managed to tap €7 million of it.

In addition, in the past months, the Malta Council for Science and Technology has increased its operations considerably. It has tripled its workforce to 24 full-time employees and 10 part-timers and strengthened its policy group.

The council has also been entrusted with the important task of setting up a National Science Interactive Centre, with the intention of encouraging children and youth to go for science, technology, research and innovation-based careers.

The government has allocated a fund of €1.5 million for the current fiscal year to start up this project and the council has just set up a new unit to start the centre design.

The beautiful premises of Villa Bighi, which have been in a state of ruin for years, have been identified as the site where the centre will be developed.

In addition, in 2010, the government, through the European Regional Development Funds allocated to Malta Enterprise, has placed €20 million on the localR&I table.

This will be available to local industrial concerns with the primary aim of boosting research and development, innovation, competitiveness, innovative start-ups, environment and e-business.

Dr Pullicino Orlando is the chairman and Dr Sammut is the vice chairman and CEO of the Malta Council for Science and Technology.