Total expenditure by General Government on R&D in 2007 amounted to €11.3 million, an increase of €0.7 million over the previous year.

The activity of the General Government sector in research and development (R&D) was measured through a survey carried out during the first quarter of 2008. A total of 113 units responded to the survey, of which nine were actively engaged in R&D projects during 2007. Four of these units were Government departments, while five were Extra Budgetary Units (EBUs).

In 2007, 967 employees were engaged in R&D work within General Government. Of these 940 were engaged in R&D activities on a part-time basis. There was a predominance of men among PhD researchers and technicians, while women were predominant among support staff.

The highest employment activity in R&D was observed in the Medical sciences, accounting for 303 employees in 2007. This was followed by the Social Sciences with 260 employees.

Total estimated expenditure by General Government on R&D activities amounted to €11.3 million in 2007, up by 6.7 per cent over 2006. Of this expenditure, 63.5 per cent went to meet labour costs, 33.8 per cent to other recurrent expenditures, while 2.8 per cent was spent on capital projects. In line with past years, during 2007 total R&D expenditure in the General Government sector was highest in the field of Social Sciences, which accounted for 31.8 per cent of total expenditure.

Virtually all the R&D expenditure in Social Sciences was entailed by the EBUs. Similar to the trend observed in previous years, the EBU sub-sector benefited from the broadest inflow of funds for 2007.

In Malta, the Higher Education Sector (HES) is included within the EBU category.

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