The Institute for Sustainable Energy of the University of Malta and the Department of Applied Physics and the School of Industrial Engineering at the University of Valladolid, Spain are celebrating ten years of academic collaboration, with the support of the Erasmus Teaching Staff and Students Exchange Programme.
During these years, twenty six students from Spain have carried out research projects at the Institute and have successfully found employment in the different engineering fields in Spain and other European countries. The research has also yielded over twenty scientific papers which were published in international conferences and peer-reviewed journals. The collaboration has also provided excellent opportunities for exchange of teaching staff and collaborative research in the fields of sustainable energy, solar radiation monitoring and renewable energies. A Ph.D. study is also being conducted at Valladolid University.
In a brief encounter with the University’s Rector to celebrate this event, the Ambassador of Spain Felipe de La Morena, highlighted the importance of sustaining such endeavours and combining them with industrial and commercial partnerships for research and development. Prof. Juanito Camilleri, Rector, noted that the chances of success are much higher when such collaborations are initiated and supported by the researchers themselves rather than a top to bottom approach. He suggested that this collaboration should also be extended to encompass other disciplines within both universities.
Dr Juan Antonio Lopez Sastre of Valladolid University declared that since his first visit to Malta he was enticed by Malta’s kind people and great history. He highlighted the fact that an Erasmus exchange experience enriches the lives of students, not only intellectually, but also socially.
Eur Ing Charles Yousif who had started this collaboration together with Dr Julia Bilbao and Dr Lopez Sastre has explained that many of the finalized projects have been of immediate and direct benefit to Maltese society at large, as they focused on applied research and on addressing current energy and environmental concerns. He stressed that such collaboration could not have succeeded without the full and active support of all members of staff, the Institute’s director Prof. Robert Ghirlando and its Chairman Dr Tonio Sant.