Malta's science base and accession into the European Union: before and after

Abstract

Malta joined the European Union (EU) on 1 May 2004. Prior to joining the EU, Malta's research and innovation (R&I) base was rather limited to tourism and aquaculture issues. Since its accession, Malta believes that it has made substantial strides in its research efforts, yet many of the traditional EU measures are unclear as to its progress. To attempt to address this discrepancy, and since no previous research has attempted to directly measure Malta's progress in its R&I outcomes, we employ bibliometric analyses, focusing on scientific publications, to uncover that Malta has indeed made progress in its scientific efforts. Comparing 573 articles in the ten years prior to accession to 2,190 articles in the ten years hence, we find that Malta has extended its international co-authorships, expanded its research front, and increased its highly cited articles. While this is clearly impressive, we also highlight some shortcomings in how far Malta has come.