Budgeting and control within the 'Building and Sustaining the R&I enabling framework' in Malta

Abstract

Purpose: If a country wants to be competitive and innovative it must promote and invest in research and innovation. This dissertation seeks to analyse the type of budgeting and controls used by the participants in the government programme administered by the Malta Council for Science and Technology; the National Strategic Plan for Research and Innovation 2007-2010 which involves academia and industry cooperating together on research projects. Design: In order to achieve the above objectives the researcher first reviewed some of the literature relevant to the dissertation's subject and used qualitative research as a tool to obtain information about the budgeting process and the subsequent controls that are in place within the programme. Interviews were held with the participants, the administrators, the Project Support Office at the University of Malta and an auditor of the project in order to obtain an understanding on how the programme functions from a financial perspective. Findings: This dissertation shows that preparing a budget and providing financial forecasts in research heavy projects can be a demanding. Therefore due to the nature of the projects one cannot have a specific budget. Another important finding in this dissertation's research was the fact that this programme enabled the industry and academia to explore and research ideas which otherwise they would never have been able to do. The dissertation also revealed that there seems to be a misconception about what an accountant's role really entails. Conclusions: The dissertation established that these type of projects are unique because of the fact that they bring together the expertise of the academia and the industry's financial mentality. However throughout this research it was also clear that accountants do not really have any input in these projects, even though they can help in making the projects more financially sustainable given that the amount of funds available are limited. Values: Through this dissertation the researcher tried to understand the financial process research projects of this type go through and whether there is any role for the accountant. The researcher delves further into the aspect that the accountant's work can be of great value to the projects' participants.