No less than eleven University of Malta academics will be benefitting from the added collective sum of €600,000, made available to the UM’s Research Fund Committee (RFC), through the Ministry for Education and Employment’s recurrent budget. This sum will be added to the existing budget of the RFC, and will allow for more research endeavours to materialise.
This was announced during a press conference streamed live via MEDE’s Facebook Page on 5 May 2020.
These funds will be invested in University research in a diversity of subject matters, including the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Information and Communication Technology, Built Environment & Engineering, Life Sciences and Natural Sciences, among others.
They will be distributed through the University’s Research Fund Committee, which is chaired by UM Pro-Rector for Research & Knowledge Transfer, Prof. Ing. Saviour Zammit.
Prof. Zammit explained that the RFC normally has a budget of €750,000 per annum to fund UM research. Half a million euros are dedicated to seed research (SEF) applications, for which around 250 applications are received. Successful applicants, who are UM academics, each receive circa €2,000 each to fund their endeavours.