Malta’s Research and Innovation Smart Specialisation Strategy (RIS3) 2021-2027 was published for public consultation, as part of the stakeholder engagement process, between 28th October and 18th November 2020. This exercise contributed to revealing the most promising areas for future national development and demonstrated the country does best in terms of R&D and innovation. Specifically, this process identified the following six priority areas for the period 2021 to 2027:
- Health and Well-being with a focus on cancer, cellular therapy, drug development, digital tools to support healthcare, focusing on e-health and bioinformatics and biomedical engineering.
- Sustainable Use of Resources for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation with a focus on net-zero carbon buildings, renewable energy generation and energy storage solutions, resource efficiency in industry and turning waste into a resource.
- Smart Manufacturing with a focus on sustainable manufacturing and flexible automation.
- Marine & Maritime Technology with a focus on the valorisation of marine resources and maritime technology.
- Aviation and Aerospace with a focus on avionics, composite materials and development of new technologies for maintenance of new products.
- Future Digital Technologies with a focus on big data and data analytics, open data, smart space applications, human-centric applications, digitizing industries and sustainable use of resources or climate change mitigation and adaptation. This is both a vertical priority and a horizontal enabler for the former five areas.
The RIS3 2021-2027 builds on achievements and lessons learnt in the previous RIS3 2014-2020. The purpose of the renewed Strategy is not to start the process from scratch, but to further reinforce those components that are not yet sufficiently developed, and to use this opportunity to recalibrate Malta’s priorities in line with economic developments as well as national challenges.
