The Nationalist Party wants a legal notice establishing a new national science and research agency to be amended.

Legal notice 112/2024, presented on May 17, lays out the details for the establishment of Science Malta, which will eventually take over the functions currently fulfilled by the Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST). 

In a statement on Saturday, PN MPs Ryan Callus and Claudette Buttigieg said that they believe the legal notice runs counter to recommendations made in a 2019 report on local research.

“This legal notice does not address the problems our country has in this sector. It is certainly not the solution our country needs,” they said.

Callus and Buttigieg said they would be tabling amendments to the legal notice in parliament to achieve cross-party agreement on how to improve research and innovation – a sector they described as “a primary pillar on which we need to base Malta’s economy”.

The MPs did not provide details about the amendments they intend to table.