MCAST is proud to announce the launching of the Information & Communication Technology Applied Research (ICTAR) group made up of a team of academics and a dedicated Senior Research Officer, Ms Gonca Kara Demir.
Established in 2001, the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology is the country’s leading Vocational Education and training Higher Education Institution. Six Institutes in Malta and the Gozo Campus, MCAST offers 180 full-time and over 300 part-time vocational courses ranging from certificates to Master’s degrees (MQF Level 1 to Level 7).
The six MCAST Institutes namely the Institute of Information and Communication Technology, Applied Sciences, Creative Arts, Engineering and Transport, Business Management and Commerce and Community Services provide all the technical and professional expertise towards the delivery of the programmes at MCAST.
MCAST’s relationship with industry stimulates the College’s success – its programmes are flexible, relevant and responsive to the aspirations of the students and to the needs of industries which are constantly evolving to meet the challenges of a changing global economy.
MCAST has a profound experience in participating various EU funded R&I projects namely under H2020, EIT Climate-KIC, Interreg Europe and Erasmus + aligned with 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals & Targets (water, energy, health, education, infrastructures) Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development 2025 (resource management, green economy, climate change, rural development), National R&I Strategy 2020 (national R& I targets, smart specialization); Higher Education Strategy for Malta 2024 (relevance of HE to labour market, innovative programmes) is one of the main priorities for the College.
Our plan is to continue to be relevant and responsive to Malta’s S3 priorities and industry’s needs.
The group is supporting MCAST’s Applied Research & Innovation Centre in its research mandate such as the AI 2025 Strategy and other initiatives. The five main themes of ICTAR are: Learning Technologies; Information Security & Digital Forensics; Artificial Intelligence; Games Research; Digital Distributed Ledgers, Cryptocurrencies & FinTech.
ICTAR can support research projects thanks to its ever-growing team of academics who are qualified in:
- Software Development & Emerging Technologies
- Information Security & Digital Forensics
- Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision & Data Science (Java, Python, R, SQL)
- Networking and Cloud Computing
- Blockchain & FinTech
- Games Research
Recent research achievements are showcased in leading digital libraries such as IEEE and Springer, active participation is well documented such as in Malta Robotics Olympiad and First Global.