The Commonwealth Centre for Connected Learning Foundation (3CL) is a Malta-based public foundation working at the intersection of technology, learning, and society. Established by public deed in 2017 and operating at arm’s length from government, we sit at a distinctive crossroads: a member of both the European Union and the Commonwealth of 56 nations, with the agility of a small state and the policy reach of two of the world’s largest multilateral networks.
Our work has evolved alongside the technologies it studies. Where our early focus was on educational technology, the rapid maturation of generative AI and large language models has pulled our attention towards something broader: LearnTech, the wider ecosystem of tools, practices and norms that shape how people learn, work and prove what they know across a lifetime. We are interested in what this shift means for human agency, for the integrity of public institutions, and for the learners who must navigate it.
Our Vision
Our vision is to advance equitable LearnTech ecosystems that empower self-sovereign learners through the strategic affordances of connected learning and the development of critical digital and AI literacies.
Our Goals
- Advance applied research into AI-mediated work and learning — examining how generative AI, distributed ledger technologies and decentralised identifiers are reshaping skills, credentials and employment, and feeding that evidence directly into national and international policy debates.
- Redesign pedagogy for the learner-centric age — moving assessment away from tasks easily automated by AI, supporting educators through their changing role, and building personalised learning pathways that a one-size-fits-all model can no longer deliver.
- Address technology-enabled inequalities through social justice — confronting the digital literacy divides, platform surveillance and algorithmic bias that threaten individual agency, and ensuring the benefits of the digital economy are distributed equitably.
- Foster self-sovereignty and critical AI literacies — equipping individuals with both the technical means to control their digital lives and the intellectual tools to interrogate the automated systems that shape them.
Our Strategies
Applied research like our Beyond Digital Natives publication that turns grounded inquiry into pragmatic policy briefs, strategic primers and open-access toolkits.
Large-scale pilots and sandboxes like DC4EU that test disruptive technologies, from decentralised identity to generative AI, in controlled real-world settings before they scale.
Strategic knowledge brokerage that connects researchers, policymakers and practitioners across the EU and the Commonwealth, such as our Identifying Disinformation conference.
Open science as a default, ensuring our outputs are public goods rather than paywalled assets. An example of this is our online open access journal Insights.mt.
Why Malta
Malta’s compact scale, dense population and compressed governance hierarchy make it a natural testbed for systemic digital transformations. We use that scale deliberately, piloting frameworks and technologies in a real-world environment where bottlenecks surface quickly, before refining them for scaling to larger jurisdictions. The same agility makes us a useful partner for the 33 small states of the Commonwealth, which share many of Malta’s structural conditions.
Transparency Statement
The 3CL Foundation was established via public deed on 15th February 2017 as a public education foundation (registered specialist entity LPF246), emerging from an initial collaboration between the Maltese Ministry for Education and Employment and the Commonwealth of Learning. It operates at arm’s length from the Government of Malta, with a new statute notarised via public deed on 6th April 2026.
The Foundation’s funding comes from two primary sources: an annual grant from the Government of Malta and project-based funding from bodies such as the European Commission.
Notwithstanding its funding relationship with the Government of Malta, the 3CL Foundation retains full operational independence. The Foundation has sole authority over its research agenda, partnerships, and programme implementation. Its multidisciplinary core team, supported by a network of contracted specialists, operates without political direction or interference, ensuring that its work remains grounded in evidence, academic rigour, and the public interest.