Last week, we reported from Eurostat a report about research and development intensity in Europe.
The report was very damning where Malta is concerned.
It said that in 2017, Malta's R&D intensity was among the lowest in the EU.
Eight Member States recorded a R&D intensity below 1% - Romania (0.5%), Latvia (0.51%), Malta (0.55%), Cyprus (0.56%), Bulgaria (0.75%), Croatia (0.86%), Lithuania and Slovakia (both 0.88%).
More damningly, the report also said that with regards to Malta, over a 10-year period, R&D intensity remained stagnant at 0.55%.
Over the last ten years, R&D intensity rose in twenty-one Member States, with the highest increases in Austria (from 2.42% in 2007 to 3.16% in 2017, or +0.74 percentage points - pp) and Belgium (from 1.84% in 2007 to 2.58% in 2017, or +0.74 pp).
R&D intensity is defined as Research &Development expenditure as a percentage of GDP.
An increase by 2020 of the R&D intensity to 3% in the EU is one of the five headline targets of the Europe 2020 strategy in order to provide a stimulus to the EU's competitiveness.
Clearly, therefore, Malta is not only not implementing what it committed itself to doing but also, by doing so, it is putting in jeopardy its progress and growth in a world that is all the time becoming increasingly dependent on the results of research and development.
The country must thus question the government, which has been in office for these past years and ask why has there been no progress in this regard.
This area has become one that is most neglected at all levels, from school age to tertiary education and university.
It may also be that it is also neglected by the local business sector. The Eurostat report said that the business enterprise sector continues to be the main sector in which R&D expenditure was spent, accounting for 66% of total R&D disbursed in 2017, followed by the higher education sector (22%), the government sector (11%) and the private non-profit sector (1%).
The matter requires urgent action and a deep corrective action: R&D is a major driver of innovation, and R&D expenditure and intensity are two of the key indicators used to monitor resources devoted to science and technology worldwide.
With respect to other major economies, R&D intensity in the EU was much lower than in South Korea (4.22% in 2015), Japan (3.28% in 2015) and the United States (2.76% in 2015), while it was at about the same level as in China (2.06% in 2015) and much higher than in Russia (1.1% in 2015) and Turkey (0.96%).
In 2017, the Member States of the European Union spent all together almost €320 billion on Research & Development. The R&D intensity, i.e. R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP, stood at 2.07% in 2017, compared with 2.04% in 2016. Ten years earlier (2007), R&D intensity was 1.77%.
Clearly, Malta has a long climb ahead of it in this matter.