Keeping L-Università on course

Abstract

During the last five years L-Università ta’ Malta (UM) went from strength to strength as it saw the fulfillment of the several objectives which I had set at the start of my Rectorate. Indeed, we went beyond a number of them despite the fact that pandemic struck in 2020 presenting us with unfamiliar, serious and ongoing challenges which require hard decisions and a steady hand on the rudder.

I promised to place UM within the group of the best 1000 Universities from a total of about 30 000 in the world by the time I finish my first term of office: we managed to do that three years ago and today, we’re in the group 601 – 800 of World Universities (Times Higher Education): we succeeded to do this because we continued to improve our research effort without abandoning our commitment to teaching quality, the internationalisation of the University and our outreach mission that constantly seeks ways and means to help and assist State institutions and local communities in their needs.

In five years, the number of researchers employed by UM on funded projects doubled from 100 to 200, including a sizeable community of post-doctoral scholars; the number of PhDs awarded in the period 2015 – 2020 rose to 189, an increase of 69% over the previous 5 year period; and our research discoveries are drawing increasing attention from major industrial operators who are ready to invest effort and money in working with the University to commercialise our inventions and innovations. To give our research students a better and more holistic experience, we launched and firmly established the Doctoral School, an apex moment for the University that will leave lasting and positive benefits to guarantee deep entrenchment of serious research and innovation at L-Università.

Another highpoint was the launch of the Office for Professional Development which affirms our commitment to quality teaching. The introduction, through the new Collective Agreement, of the Tenure Track process amidst other measures was intended to better ensure that new recruits to academic positions are expected to commit their best efforts to both the research mission and care of the University’s most precious resource, namely students. [excerpt]