The role of benchmarking and foresight in Malta's R&I policy design

Abstract

Over the last four decades, there have been growing indications worldwide of an increased use by governments of Benchmarking and Foresight as policy tools in national Research and Innovation (R&I) policy design. Intergovernmental organisations have played an important role in promoting the use of these tools and in providing support for their development. The European Union has in particular stimulated the use of Benchmarking and Foresight in policy design through the Scientific and Technical Research Committee (CREST) and the Framework Programmes (FPs), by complementing this with the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), peer review and joint-programme initiatives. Benchmarking the inputs and outputs of national systems of R&I is primarily based on the development and refinement of R&I indicators and scoreboards, by Eurostat, World Economic Forum (WEF) and OECD. There is a trend across most countries worldwide to focus the efforts of various national resources towards one common front, with the aim of promoting the national R&I Indicators as the basis for more evidence based policy approaches using International R&I Benchmarks. These latter indicators are not only related but, to an extent, also complementary because of the spill over effects of each Benchmark. The link between investments in R&I and future economic growth has been proven – R&I measures support local industries by providing them with the technology and competitive edge required to trade in today’s aggressive global markets. Benchmarking increasingly relates to efficiency of efforts in implementation by governments to facilitate and catalyse the R&I development process. The approach used for this study will phased in there main stages. Stage 1 consists of a general analysis of the most widely used international Benchmarks and Foresight approaches, as well as current R&I best practices and successful strategies in national policy design, deployed both locally and overseas, with a view to formulating a national strategy tailored to the Maltese Economy. State 2 will present the results of the data collected from a number of local R&I workshops and a sample survey, in the form of a semi-structured questionnaire sent to a number of major Maltese stakeholders, in both the public and private sector. A final stage discusses and compares all the date collected with the literature reviewed by the author and concludes by recommending a national policy design approach that be realised using both Benchmarking and Foresight approaches.