The Institute of Maltese Studies is essentially a postgraduate institute within the University of Malta. Our Institute has been functioning successfully for over a decade. At present we are working to make our Institute more effective by increasing the number of PhD candidates, organise CPDs, and more innovative academic activities, in line with several requests that we have been receiving besides the ongoing successful taught Master course. We are also planning other academic activities, like public seminars and projects that will make the Institute of Maltese Studies more reachable to the general public. In this way the Institute intends to be more accessible to a wider section of potential candidates.
As our Institute is inter-faculty, its approach is inter-disciplinary. It aims to cover a wide range of aspects that have a bearing on Maltese culture and identity from a comparative perspective and within a European and Mediterranean framework. In short, the main objectives of the Institute of Maltese Studies are to promote the pursuit of interdisciplinary academic studies and research on various aspects of Maltese culture and identity in their widest manifestations. It will continue to serve as a focal point for students and scholars, besides functioning as a research resource centre through the creation of a reference index of theses and publications and other relevant material in this domain as well as to hold occasional seminars and other encounters.
Our Institute intends to serve as an ethnic-cultural link with Maltese and other overseas communities through the promotion of association, research, information and exchange agreements with tertiary institutions and communal bodies in the fields of migrant settlement and diaspora concerns throughout the world.
A frequent complaint among Maltese migrants the world over is that Malta has often neglected them and their efforts to retain the link with their Maltese ancestral provenance in language, culture and other aspects of Maltese identity. Our Institute is aiming to partly help resolve this unfortunate circumstance by organising online diploma and certificate courses on Maltese culture.
With some forward planning, a lot of enthusiasm, and solid planning, our Institute intends to serve as cultural ambassador of Malta among the Maltese, with the foreigners that visit Malta as well as others that live abroad. The Institute of Maltese Studies has the potential to play a fundamental role in academic research concerning Malta. It is for this reason that the Institute of Maltese Studies has from its inception sought to answer meaningful questions about Maltese cultural identity, the way they have changed over the centuries, and their role in a fast-changing world. Indeed, the fast changing political, economic, social and cultural scene in Malta, Europe, and the Mediterranean induced us to boost our Master course and develop other structured holistic courses in Maltese Studies. We are ready for the challenge and we hope readers are prepared to take the plunge.
