How Malta Merged Institutional Muscle with Coalition Spirit

• February 26, 2026
• Andrew

When governments reorganise public bodies, the typical outcome is centralisation for tighter control, leaner budgets, and the quiet erosion of the partnerships that gave the original structures their energy. Malta’s decision to integrate the eSkills Malta Foundation into the Malta Digital Innovation Authority in January 2025 took a different path. It merged two bodies without sacrificing the coalition philosophy that had made one of them one of Europe’s most effective digital skills coalitions.

The eSkills Malta Foundation, established in 2014, was built on a founding conviction that multi-sectoral partnerships are key in achieving synergy for the sustainable development of the right digital skills. The Foundation brought together the Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA), the Malta Communications Authority (MCA), Malta Enterprise, the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA), the Ministry for Economy, the Ministry for Education, and the Malta Chamber of Commerce as co-governing members. This multi-stakeholder character was not decorative; it was operational. The Foundation advised the government on skills policy, contributed to the ICT curriculum reform, led a national ICT professionalism programme, and ran upskilling campaigns, all with the authority that comes from being genuinely owned by the organisations closest to Malta’s digital economy. Over a decade, it established Malta as one of the EU’s most coherent national coalitions for digital skills and jobs.

The Malta Digital Innovation Authority, created in 2018, carried a complementary but distinct mandate. The MDIA was charged with positioning Malta as a hub for technological innovation: governing innovative technology arrangements, regulating emerging technologies, promoting ethical AI, and overseeing national digital strategy. Its most visible initiative was DiHubMT, Malta’s European Digital Innovation Hub, providing SMEs and start-ups with structured upskilling, a three-tier entrepreneurship programme, and access to EU innovation networks. The MDIA brought executive authority and innovation governance capacity; the Foundation brought a decade of coalition-building and upskilling reach. By 2024, it was clear these two mandates were stronger together than apart.

The integration was not a unilateral government decision. The eSkills Malta Foundation was co-founded by several strong stakeholders, so the move required formal approval from all these bodies, a requirement that also signalled the intent that this would not mean subordinating the coalition’s multi-sector character to a single authority but embedding it within the MDIA’s broader framework. The Foundation’s functions of advisory work, curriculum reform, the professionalism programme, and national campaigns transferred intact, while Malta retained its standing as a National Coalition for Digital Skills and Jobs on the EU’s Digital Skills and Jobs Platform. The National Coalition members were also refreshed and now include the DiHubMT, the University of Malta, the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST), JA Malta, Jobsplus, the Malta Chamber of SMEs, the Directorate for Digital Literacy and Transversal Skills (Min. of Education), and the Digital Literacy, the Department of Digital Literacy & Transversal Skills from the Malta Archdiocese (Church Schools), and others that will be joining.

The practical effect has been a step-change in coherence. Upskilling for citizens, reskilling support for workers, innovation training through DiHubMT, and national skills policy advice now flow from a single authority. A start-up founder navigating Malta’s ecosystem today encounters a joined-up offer of entrepreneurship development, technology access, workforce upskilling, and policy engagement, all through the MDIA. That integration was previously impossible when skills and innovation governance sat in separate institutions with separate boards.

For MDIA Chief Executive Kenneth Brincat, the integration connects practical business solutions to real societal needs. For Carmel Cachia, who led the Foundation, the priority is continuity, ensuring that a decade of carefully built initiatives is amplified within a stronger institutional home.

What Europe Can Learn
Across the EU, national digital skills coalitions and innovation authorities regularly operate in parallel without meaningful integration — sharing audiences, sometimes collaborating on events, but rarely sharing governance or strategy. Malta’s experience is a practical demonstration of what becomes possible when these two functions are united under a single mandate.

The key lesson is not that every country should merge its institutions, but that the coalition character of digital skills development must be preserved through any restructuring. What made the eSkills Malta Foundation effective was not its legal form; it was genuine multi-sector ownership of its mission. Malta protected that ownership through the integration with a national authority that is simultaneously an innovation regulator, an upskilling provider, an entrepreneurship ecosystem, and a cross-sector coalition. That combination, achieved without dismantling what came before, is a governance model worth studying.