A report that measures the progress being made by European Union member states shows that Malta ranks last and needs more than 50 years to catch up with the EU average.
The European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) is the instrument used by the European Commission, under the Lisbon Strategy, to evaluate and compare the innovation performance of member states.
The analysis compares member states on the transformation of innovation assets – such as education and investment in innovation – into innovation return, such as firm turnover coming from new products, employment in high tech sectors, patents and other innovation measures.
While the Maltese may be the happiest people in the world, at least according to the results of a five-year study, there aren’t many smiles to be seen when it comes to our ability to be innovative. Malta not only features at the bottom of the table, but Bulgaria, which still has to join the EU, ranks better than us.
The result is not all doom and gloom and of the five areas analysed, Malta does well in two: innovation and entrepreneurship and in applications. However, the Commission is quick to pour cold water and suggests that this positive showing “is largely due to high tech exports, which is an anomaly due to one firm within a very small economy”.
Shocking, to say the least, is that business research and development is close to non-existent and public research and development is only 28 per cent of the EU average.
So what is the problem? In its appraisal, the Commission actually highlights one of the main reasons why Malta fares so dismally. First, Malta’s innovation performance can only depend on one or two firms and, second, Malta is a small island.
Although this should not be an excuse, in reality it has much to do with everything else. We can either argue that the glass is half full – in that case, despite our small size and economies of scale, Malta does well for itself when gauged for total innovation expenditures, high technology exports and ICT expenditures. Surely, on a per capita basis, the country is doing relatively well compared to other EU states.
If we argue that the glass is half empty, then we have to admit that, yes, research and development remains very low on the list of priorities. Now, either this is due to a mentality that we can get along by importing technology or we simply do not have the resources – human and capital – to be innovative.
To be fair, it is a bit of both. From an IT perspective, the country has made huge advances. We have one of the highest penetration levels of broadband internet access in Malta, the level of IT instruction from a young age has improved enormously, IT instruction is also available at community level through local councils and, for an island of our size, we have three or four IT academies that represent the leading ICT companies in the world. That is innovation.
On the other hand, admittedly, we have a long way to go before we can start calling ourselves “innovative”. As the Commission report found, the private sector in general does not carry out much business and research development in other areas besides IT. This is a pity. In the public sector there is a slight improvement but it is way behind what the EU is expecting.
The Malta Council for Science and Technology has been doing its utmost to encourage private sector companies and individuals to take up a number of innovation programmes that are available, but it is not easy to change a nation’s mentality overnight. However, something more has to be done.
The University has an important role to play here. It must also “learn” to encourage students to be innovative, to question and to “dare” their mentors to reach higher levels of research and development.
There is also another important factor: money. To be innovative, you need investment. And by investment we mean big companies setting up R&D centres in Malta. There is much we can do to improve our position on the innovation table; we can’t expect miracles without a boost of foreign direct investment in R&D.