The University of Malta is the highest teaching institution in the state from which it is mainly funded. Over the last few years, the University has revised its structures in order to be in line with the most up-to-date European universities.
There are 14 faculties and various departments and institutes, with research conducted in a variety of areas, including the conservation of our local natural heritage, the methods of controlling invasive species, the monitoring and the reintroduction of endemic flora and fauna, and others. The complete list of topics is available at: http://www.um.edu.mt/about/um.
The University of Malta also supports a network of European and international university groups. There are more than 800 academics and several dozens of non-academic staff units.
The degree programs are designed to produce highly skilled, research-experienced professionals who will play key roles in industry, commerce, and public affairs.
The University of Malta is involved as coordinator and partner in numerous EU funded projects under various programs including FP5 / 6/7, Horizon 2020, Lifelong Learning Program, Culture 2000, Tempus, Erasmus +, INTERREG EU -MED-ITALY MALTA-ENPI CBC MED and various other international and national programs and initiatives. He participated in 15 projects under the previous Italy-Malta 2007-2013 operational program and was Lead Partner in 3 of these projects.
The Division for Rural Sciences and Food Technology participating in the project is made up of researchers from the Institute of Earth Systems (IES).
The research activity includes improved food technologies for olive oils and honey; use of plant extracts in industry; soil science; livestock; beekeeping and applied entomology.
David Mifsud, who is an associate professor at the institute, also worked as a national expert for DAISIE (provision of inventories of invasive alien species for Europe) under the EU's Sixth Framework Program.
The two laboratories belonging to the Division for Rural Sciences and Food Technology are equipped with instruments for the study of basic microbiology and entomological equipment, including thermocyclers, autoclaves, incubators, microscopes, HPLC, microwave plasma atomic emission spectrometry and PCR
Currently the Division is involved in two COST programs (FA1307) entitled "Sustainable pollination in joint research in Europe on bees and other pollinators (Super-B)" and (FA1405) entitled "Using three-way interactions between plants, microbes and arthropods to improve crop protection and production ". It also participates in SMARTBEES (Sustainable management of resilient bee populations) EU PROJECT Project CE-FP7-KBBE 613960.
The role of the University of Malta in the FAST project will be to coordinate the activities envisaged in WP3 and will also take care of the monitoring of the project actions that will be implemented in Malta, as well as the creation of the IT platform for consultation and implementation of the alien species database. Furthermore, the University of Malta will take care of the renaturation activities foreseen in the Natura 2000 sites in Malta in WP4 and will actively participate in the dissemination activities of the information foreseen in WP2. Furthermore, the University of Malta will support requests for authorization from a technical-scientific point of view for the implementation of interventions within Maltese Natura 2000 sites.