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New ideas - Malta

Updated 11/2010

Legal requirements

The Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST) launched the National Strategy for Research and Innovation for 2007-2010, entitled 'Building and Sustaining the Research and Innovation (R&I) Enabling Framework' in 2006. It highlighted Malta's need to rapidly improve its R&I performance, and in essence, to see R&I as a fundamental pivot / driver of the Maltese economy.

Malta is committed to improving its ranking in Research and Innovation capacity and performance as reflected in the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS). The EIS for 2009 provides a comparative assessment of Malta's innovation performance with the EU-27. The different Member States are classified into four country groups, Innovation Leaders, Innovation Followers, Moderate Innovators and the Catching-up countries. This year's assessment shows that there continues to be convergence amongst the groups, with Moderate innovators and the Catching-up countries growing at a faster rate than the Innovation leaders and Innovation followers. Malta has registered the largest improvement within its peer group. Notwithstanding this improvement, Malta's key innovation challenge is to enhance the framework conditions for a more broadly based innovation performance and innovation development.

Other documents of relevance in shaping national innovation policy are the MARIS (Malta Regional Innovation Strategy) and the National Industry Strategy 2007-2010.

Technological innovation

The National Strategic Plan for Research and Innovation 2007-2010 provides a number of recommendations aimed towards sustaining technological innovation, based on the strategic objectives of addressing national issues, enabling SMEs to innovate and focusing on selected areas of performance.

Alongside innovation, access to R&D is essential for businesses to develop and stay competitive.

Intellectual property must be protected to encourage innovation.

Resources

The Malta Business Bureau provides the business community with a direct channel to the various EU institutions and acts as a source of information on EU regulations.

Among its array of services, the Malta Federation of Industry (FOI) provides its members with up-to-date information on EU-funding available through calls for proposals or tenders and is involved in a number of EU funded projects.

Programmes

Maltese businesses seeking to become competitive through research and innovation can seek funding from the MCST under the National R&I Programme and other programmes available in Malta.

The National R&I Programme is a funding programme for applied research and innovation projects in the fields of science and technology managed and administered by the MCST under its National Strategic Plan for R&I: 2007-2010. Calls under this programme are issued yearly. In 2010, the call for proposals under this programme was issued on June 15th.

The European Union Programmes Agency (EUPA) helps individuals secure funding under the various educational programmes offered by the European Commission.

Check also the legislation on this topic in:

  • References

    Key documents

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