SME Chamber President meets MDB Officials
22 April 2024
Malta Chamber of SMEs President Mr Paul Abela met MDB Chairman Leo Brincat and CEO...
Research and Innovation in Malta
09 March 2014
Last week GRTU
Council Member Noel Gauci met with Hon Stefan Buontempo, Parliamentary
Secretary for Research, Innovation, Youth and Sport, to discuss ways to improve
Malta's situation with Research & Innovation (R&I) and results achieved
thereof.
It was discussed that it is imperative for entrepreneurs to be
actively involved in the quest to facilitate the commercialisation of
successful research projects. Whether these entrepreneurs have a degree or not
should not make a difference, but one should rather pay attention to their
ability and expertise in research, innovation, development and
commercialisation.
GRTU has
proposed that entrepreneurs would be involved more, for instance GRTU is under
the impression that the MCST board is composed of an absolute majority of
academics. R&I is too often associated solely with academia, although
lately this perception is starting to change and we need to do much more to
eradicate the misconception. GRTU suggested that for R&I commercialisation to
take-off, the MCST board should be broadened to include enterprise
representatives, including GRTU as the national representative of SMEs and of
specific sectors such as the renewable energy industry.
Mr Gauci
also suggested the organization of regular information sessions though which
researchers would have the opportunity to present their project to
entrepreneurs and entice them to participate and collaborate.
GRTU
said it looked forward to a long and healthy relationship with the
Parliamentary Secretary in this regard.
