With this week’s establishment of the university trust fund, the University of Malta has taken a quantum leap forward. True, it has by no means reinvented the wheel and it has rather jumped on an already old bandwagon, but it has begun to forge a new path between the educational and private sectors.

The initial €500,000 in government seed capital will go some way towards getting the initiative − the University Research, Innovation and Development Trust – off the ground, and now is the time for the private sector to get on board.

That the university needs to come up with new revenue streams is undeniable. The university generates 15 per cent of its revenue from fees paid by foreign students, with the remaining lion’s share paid by the state. It has no assets, no property and no other revenue sources.

In short, the university is almost completely reliant on state funding and state funding in this post recession day and age is not as generous as it could otherwise be, if indeed the university could ever be funded enough.

The university, after the first official mention of such a trust fund in the pre-budget document three years ago, has now found what will hopefully be one such source.

Here the academic-private sector relationship can work in two ways: as a private company public relations tool or as a research and development tool for the private sector. In the former, a company may wish to be associated with, for example, a positive aspect of research in an area associated with its goods or services. Or it may wish to become a benefactor under its Corporate Social Responsibility policy.

This is all well and good and it will provide much needed euros for the university’s coffers, while at the same time empowering it to carry out research that might otherwise not have been undertaken.

It is in the latter area that there is the prospect of a more tangible symbiosis – in collaborative and joint research projects developed and carried out in conjunction between the university and the private sector. The possibilities here, even in a small country such as this, are seemingly endless.

The university has taken a quantum leap forward this week but if it is to land on its feet, it will need the right response from the private sector.

The university is clearly in need of additional funding, and the private sector is in need of innovative research and development – the ball is now in the private sector’s court, let us hope it responds appropriately.

The coming weeks

The coming weeks will tell if the worst-case scenarios of a Libyan exodus will hold true for Malta.

Much has been said of the threat posed by a potential exodus from Libya and much has also been said about the EU’s apparent unwillingness to provide preparatory assistance in advance of that worst-case scenario.

But now, as the bloodshed drags on almost relentlessly in Libya, and as the weather begins to turn for the better with the advent of summer, Malta and its fellow southern EU member states will be looking towards the horizon with trepidation.

For the time being, rough sea conditions south of Malta are expected to continue through to at least Tuesday – meaning further delays of migrants boats waiting to set sail, or further dangerous sea rescues by the Armed Forces, or both.

But along with those unfortunates, according to a Europol report presented to the European Parliament this week, there could also be terrorists seeking entry into Europe.

The threat of terrorists seeking entry to the EU under the guise of asylum seekers is nothing new and it is one that in the past has been highlighted by several governments. But the potential sheer size of the Libyan exodus, if it ever happens, seems to have put things in a whole new perspective.

Europol is not speaking of the hundreds of thousands of sub-Saharan Africans that have been stuck in Libya en route to Europe and who are now desperately trying to flee the violence. It is speaking about the North Africans themselves fleeing the violence and of North African terrorists being concealed within their ranks.

The United States, Canada, Britain and Japan have warned that al-Qaeda has further intentions against Europe. While those warnings, which had begun back in October, had focused on threats emanating specifically from Pakistan, the international intelligence community, and Europol itself, is placing increased scrutiny on the movements of the al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) group – a group operating in Malta’s backyard and one that could possibly seek to use Malta as a transit point into Europe.

The threat of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing a Libyan civil war − Libyans and sub-Saharan Africans alike – has upped the ante considerably should the worst case migratory scenarios being forecast come to fruition.

Given that, not only does the EU need to show solidarity and prepare for the exodus to Europe, but it will also need to help vet very carefully those who claim they are fleeing the violence in Libya.

Following the Europol report, the EU should be more on its guard than ever and, given the threat, the EU would be doubly served if it were to respond to the calls for advance assistance being made by Malta and its fellow southern states.