Science and technology in Israel

Science and technology in Israel is one of the country's most developed sectors. In 2019, Israel was ranked the world's seventh most innovative country by the Bloomberg Innovation Index.^[1]

Israel counts 140 scientists and technicians per 10,000 employees, one of the highest ratios in the world. In comparison, there are 85 per 10,000 in the United States and 83 per 10,000 in Japan.^[2] In 2012, Israel counted 8,337 full-time equivalent researchers per million inhabitants.^[3] This compares with 3,984 in the US, 6,533 in the Republic of South Korea and 5,195 in Japan.^[4][3]

Israel is home to major companies in the high-tech industry. In 1998, Tel Aviv was named by Newsweek as one of the ten most technologically influential cities in the world.^[5] Since 2000, Israel has been a member of EUREKA, the pan-European research and development funding and coordination organization, and held the rotating chairmanship of the organization for 2010–2011.^[6][7] In 2010, American journalist David Kaufman wrote that the high-tech area of Yokneam, Israel, has the "world's largest concentration of aesthetics-technology companies".^[8] Google chairman Eric Schmidt complimented the country during a visit there, saying that “Israel has the most important high-tech center in the world after the US.”^[9] Israel was ranked 15th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024,^[10] down from 10th in 2019.^[11] The Tel Aviv region was ranked the fourth global tech ecosystem in the world.^[12]

Jewish settlement in Israel was motivated by both ideology and flight from persecution.^[13] Return to the homeland was an important aspect of Jewish immigration and was perceived by many as a return to the soil. To establish the rural villages that formed the core of Zionist ideology and produce self-supporting Jewish farmers, agronomic experiments were conducted.^[14] The foundations of agricultural research in Israel were laid by the teachers and graduates of the Mikveh Yisrael School, the country's first agricultural school, established by the Alliance Israelite Universelle in 1870.^[15] On a field trip to Mount Hermon in 1906, the agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn discovered Triticum dicoccoides, or emmer wheat, believed to be the "mother of all wheat."^[16] In 1909, he founded an agricultural research station in Atlit where he built up an extensive library and collected geological and botanical samples.^[17] The Agricultural Station, founded in Rehovot in 1921, engaged in soil research and other aspects of farming in the country's difficult climatic conditions.^[18] This station, which became the Agricultural Research Organization (ARO), is now Israel's major institution of agricultural research and development.

In 1912, the first cornerstone of the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology was laid at a festive ceremony in Haifa, which was then occupied by the Ottoman Empire. The Technion would become a unique university worldwide in its claim to precede and create a nation. As Jews were often barred from technical education in Europe,^[19] the Technion claims to have brought the skills needed to build a modern state.^[20]

Established before World War I, the Hebrew Health Station in Jerusalem, founded by Nathan Straus engaged in medical and public health research, operating departments for public hygiene, eye diseases and bacteriology.^[21] The station manufactured vaccines against typhus and cholera, and developed methods of pest control to eliminate field mice. The Pasteur Institute affiliated with the station developed a rabies vaccine.^[21] Departments for microbiology, biochemistry, bacteriology, and hygiene were opened at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, founded on Mount Scopus in 1925. In 1936, Jewish workers in the center of the country donated two-days' pay toward the establishment of the "Hospital of Judea and Sharon," later renamed Beilinson Hospital. In 1938, Beilinson established the country's first blood bank.^[22] The Rothschild-Hadassah University Hospital on Mount Scopus opened in 1939 and was the first teaching hospital and medical center in the country. Since renamed the Hadassah Medical Center, it has become a leader in medical research.^[23]

Industrial research began at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, was also initiated at the Daniel Sieff Research Center (later the Weizmann Institute of Science), established in 1934 in Rehovot. The Dead Sea Laboratories opened in the 1930s. The first modern electronic computer in Israel and the Middle East, and one of the first large-scale, stored-program, electronic computers in the world, called WEIZAC, was built at the Weizmann Institute during 1954–1955, based on the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) architecture developed by John von Neumann.^[24] WEIZAC has been recognized by the IEEE as a milestone in the history of electrical engineering and computing.^[25] IBM Israel, registered on June 8, 1950, was the country's first high-tech firm. The company, located on Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, assembled and repaired punch card machines, sorting machines and tabulators. In 1956, a local plant was opened to produce punch cards, and a year later, the first service center opened, offering computerized data processing services.^[26]

Scientific and technological research in Israel was boosted by the appointment of a chief scientist for the Industry and Trade Ministry at the recommendation of a committee headed by Ephraim Katzir, later president of Israel.^[27] The Israeli government provided grants that covered 50–80 percent of the outlay for new start-ups, with no conditions, no shareholding and no participation in management.^[27] In the early 1980s, Control Data Corporation, a partner in Elron Electronic Industries, formed the country's first venture capital firm.^[27]

Israel's high-technology industries are a spin-off of the rapid development of computer science and technology in the 1980s in such places as Silicon Valley and Massachusetts Route 128 in the US, which ushered in the current high-tech era. Up until that point, Israel's economy had been essentially based on agriculture, mining and secondary sectors such as diamond polishing and manufacturing in textiles, fertilizers and plastics.

The key factor which enabled high-tech industries based on information and communication technologies to take root and flourish in Israel was investment by the defense and aerospace industries, which spawned new technologies and know-how. Israel devoted 17.1% of its GDP to military expenditure in 1988. Even though this share had dropped to 5.8% of GDP by 2016, Israel military spending remains among the highest in the world. For the purposes of comparison, the United States devoted 5.7% of its GDP to military expenditure in 1988 and 3.3% in 2016.^[28] This heavy investment in defense and aerospace formed the basis for Israel's high-tech industries in medical devices, electronics, telecommunications, computer software and hardware.

The massive Russian immigration of the 1990s reinforced this phenomenon, doubling the number of engineers and scientists in Israel overnight. Between 1989 and 2006, about 979,000 Russian Jews and their relatives migrated to Israel, which had a population of just 4.5 million in 1989.^[3] These immigrants were extremely educated and quickly assimilated into Israeli society. More than 55% of them had a high level of education and one of the highest rates globally were engineers, architects, physicians, technicians, and other professionals. This huge immigration boosted the Israeli economy and high-tech sector significantly.^[29]

The purchase of Mirabilis in 1998 marked the first big exit of high technology in Israel and caused a rush of Israeli companies as part of the Dot-com bubble.

Currently, Israel has the world's most research-intensive business sector. In 2018, 4.95% of its GDP was invested in research and technology.^[30] Meanwhile, Israel's technology sector plays a crucial role in the country's economy. In 2021, the Israeli high-technology sector accounted for around 12% of the country's economic output and 10% of its national labour force.^[30]

Competitive grants and tax incentives are the two main public policy instruments in supporting business research and development. Thanks to generous government incentives and the availability of highly trained human capital, Israel has become an attractive location for the research and development centers of leading multinational corporations around the world. The country's national innovation ecosystem relies on both foreign multinationals and large corporate investors in research and development, as well as on start-ups.

As of 2019, some 530 foreign research centres were currently active in Israel.^[31] Many of these centers are owned by large multinational firms that have acquired Israeli companies, technology and know-how and transformed them through mergers and acquisitions into their own local research facilities. The activity of some research centers even spans more than three decades, such as those of Intel, Applied Materials, Motorola and IBM.^[3]

In the late 2010s, Israel saw a sharp increase in the number of high-technology startups that achieved 'unicorn status' (a financing round at a valuation of $1 billion or more): in 2016, Israel had 10 such startups.^[32] By 2019, the number had risen to 19.^[32] Be the end of 2021, 74 tech unicorns had emerged from Israel's tech sector - 33 in 2021 alone.^[33][34] The growth in the number of unicorn startups in Israel, together with tech startups maturing to become public companies rather being acquired earlier in their lifecycle, has led to the suggestion that Israel has transitioned from 'Startup Nation' to 'Scale-up Nation'.^{[34][35][36][37][38]}

Despite it's reputation as a 'Start Up Nation', 25% of Israelis are technologically illiterate due to cultural and financial barriers. 375,000 children in Israel do not have access to a computer at home.^[39]

Israel's higher education system is regulated by the Council for Higher Education and its Planning and Budgeting Committee. The Israeli higher education system operates under a multi-year plan agreed upon by the Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC) and the Ministry of Finance. Each plan determines policy objectives and, accordingly, the budgets to be allocated in order to achieve these objectives.^[3]

The annual government allocation to universities totalled about US$1.75 billion in 2015, providing 50–75% of their operating budgets. Much of the remainder of their operating budget (15–20%) comes from annual student tuition fees, which are uniform at about US$2,750 per year. The Sixth Higher Education Plan (2011–2016) makes provision for a 30% rise in the Council for Higher Education's budget. The Sixth Plan changes the budgeting model of the PBC by placing greater emphasis on excellence in research, along with quantitative measures for the number of students. Under this model, 75% of the committee's budget (NIS 7 billion over six years) is being allocated to institutions offering higher education. The Sixth Higher Education Plan launched the Israeli Centres of Research Excellence (I-CORE) programme in October 2011. This reflects a renewed interest in funding academic research and constitutes a strong indication of a reversal in government policy.^[3]

The Israeli Centres of Research Excellence (I-CORE) programme, which dates from 2011, envisions the establishment of cross-institutional clusters of top researchers in specific fields and returning young Israeli scientists from abroad, with each centre being endowed with state-of-the-art research infrastructure. The Sixth Higher Education Plan invests NIS 300 million over six years in upgrading and renovating academic infrastructure and research facilities.^[3]

I-CORE is run jointly by the Council for Higher Education's Planning and Budgeting Committee and the Israel Science Foundation. By 2015, 16 centres had been established in two waves across a wide spectrum of research areas: six specialize in life sciences and medicine, five in the exact sciences and engineering, three in social sciences and law and two in humanities. Each centre of excellence has been selected via a peer review process conducted by the Israel Science Foundation. By May 2014, around 60 young researchers had been absorbed into these centres, many of whom had previously worked abroad.^[3]

The research topics of each centre are selected through a broad bottom-up process consisting of consultations with the Israeli academic community, in order to ensure that they reflect the genuine priorities and scientific interests of Israeli researchers.^[3]

I-CORE is funded by the Council for Higher Education, the host institutions and strategic business partners, with a total budget of NIS 1.35 billion (US$365 million). The original goal was to set up 30 centres of research excellence in Israel by 2016. However, the establishment of the remaining 14 centres has provisionally been shelved, for lack of sufficient external capital.^[3]

In 2013–2014, the Planning and Budgeting Committee's budget for the entire I-CORE programme amounted to NIS 87.9 million, equivalent to about 1% of the total for higher education that year. This budget appears to be insufficient to create the critical mass of researchers in various academic fields and thus falls short of the programme's objective. The level of government support for the centres of excellence has grown each year since 2011 as new centres have been established and is expected to reach NIS 93.6 million by 2015–2016 before dropping to 33.7 million in 2017–2018. According to the funding model, government support should represent one-third of all funding, another third being funded by the participating universities and the remaining third by donors or investors.^[3]

In the 2012–2013 academic year, there were 4,066 faculty members. The targets fixed by the Planning and Budgeting Committee for faculty recruitment are ambitious: universities are to recruit another 1 600 senior faculty within the six-year period – about half of whom will occupy new positions and half will replace faculty expected to retire. This will constitute a net increase of more than 15% in university faculty. In colleges, another 400 new positions are to be created, entailing a 25% net increase. The new faculty will be hired via the institutions’ regular recruitment channels, some in specific research areas, through the Israeli Centers of Research Excellence program.^[3]

The increase in faculty numbers will also reduce the student-to-faculty ratio, the target being to achieve a ratio of 21.5 university students to every faculty member, compared to 24.3 at present, and 35 students for every faculty member in colleges, compared to 38 at present. This increase in the number of faculty positions, alongside the upgrading of research and teaching infrastructure and the increase in competitive research funds, should help Israel to staunch brain drain by enabling the best Israeli researchers at home and abroad to conduct their academic work in Israel, if they so wish, at institutions offering the highest academic standards.^[3]

The new budgeting scheme described above is mainly concerned with the human and research infrastructure in universities. Most of the physical development (e.g. buildings) and scientific infrastructure (e.g. laboratories and expensive equipment) of universities comes from philanthropic donations, primarily from the American Jewish community (CHE, 2014). This latter source of funding has greatly compensated for the lack of sufficient government funding for universities up until now but it is expected to diminish significantly in the years to come. Unless the government invests more in research infrastructure, Israel's universities will be ill-equipped and insufficiently funded to meet the challenges of the 21st century.^[3]

Israel has offered virtually universal access to its universities and academic colleges since the wave of Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s prompted the establishment of numerous tertiary institutions to absorb the additional demand. However, the Arab and ultra-orthodox minorities still attend university in insufficient numbers. The Sixth Higher Education Plan places emphasis on encouraging minority groups to enroll in higher education. Two years after the Mahar program was implemented in late 2012 for the ultra-orthodox population, student enrollment had grown by 1400. Twelve new programs for ultra-orthodox students have since been established, three of them on university campuses. Meanwhile, the Pluralism and Equal Opportunity in Higher Education program addresses the barriers to integration of the Arab minority in the higher education system. Its scope ranges from providing secondary-school guidance through preparation for academic studies to offering students comprehensive support in their first year of study, a stage normally characterized by a high drop-out rate. The program renews the Ma’of fund supporting outstanding young Arab faculty members. Since the introduction of this program in 1995, the Ma’of fund has opened tenure track opportunities for nearly 100 Arab lecturers, who act as role models for younger Arab students embarking on their own academic careers.^[3]

Although Israel does not have an ‘umbrella type’ policy for science, technology and innovation optimizing priorities and allocating resources, it does implement, de facto, an undeclared set of best practices combining bottom-up and top-down processes via government offices, such as those of the Chief Scientist or the Minister of Science, Technology and Space, as well as ad hoc organizations like the Telem forum. The procedure for selecting research projects for the Israeli centers for research excellence is one example of this bottom-up process.^[3]

Israel has no specific legislation regulating the transfer of knowledge from the academic sector to the general public and industry. Nevertheless, the Israeli government influences policy formulation by universities and technology transfer by providing incentives and subsidies through programmes such as Magnet and Magneton, as well as through regulation. There were attempts in 2004 and 2005 to introduce bills encouraging the transfer of knowledge and technology for the public benefit but, as these attempts failed, each university has since defined its own policy.^[3]

The Israeli economy is driven by industries based on electronics, computers and communication technologies, the result of over 50 years of investment in the country's defence infrastructure. Israeli defence industries have traditionally focused on electronics, avionics and related systems. The development of these systems has given Israeli high-tech industries a qualitative edge in civilian spin-offs in the software, communications and Internet sectors. However, the next waves of high technologies are expected to emanate from other disciplines, including molecular biology, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, nanotechnology, material sciences and chemistry, in intimate synergy with information and communication technologies. These disciplines are rooted in the basic research laboratories of universities rather than the defence industries. This poses a dilemma. In the absence of a national policy for universities, let alone for the higher education system as a whole, it is not clear how these institutions will manage to supply the knowledge, skills and human resources needed for these new science-based industries.^[3]

The country's various policy instruments are evaluated by the Council for Higher Education, the National Council for Research and Development, the Office of the Chief Scientist, the Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Ministry of Finance. In recent years, the Magnet administration in the Office of the Chief Scientist has initiated several evaluations of its own policy instruments, most of which have been carried out by independent research institutions. One such evaluation was carried out in 2010 by the Samuel Neaman Institute; it concerned the Nofar programme within the Magnet directorate. Nofar tries to bridge basic and applied research, before the commercial potential of a project has caught the eye of industry. The main recommendation was for Nofar to extend programme funding to emerging technological domains beyond biotechnology and nanotechnology. The Office of the Chief Scientist accepted this recommendation and, consequently, decided to fund projects in the fields of medical devices, water and energy technology and multidisciplinary research.^[3]

An additional evaluation was carried out in 2008 by Applied Economics, an economic and management research-based consultancy, on the contribution of the high-tech sector to economic productivity in Israel. It found that the output per worker in companies that received support from the Office of the Chief Scientist was 19% higher than in ‘twin’ companies that had not received this support. The same year, a committee headed by Israel Makov examined the Office of the Chief Scientist's support for research and development in large companies. The committee found economic justification for providing incentives for these companies.^[3]

The Israeli Science Foundation is the main source of research funding in Israel and receives administrative support from the Academy of Sciences and Humanities. The foundation provides competitive grants in three areas: exact sciences and technology; life sciences and medicine; and humanities and social sciences. Complementary funding is provided by binational foundations, such as the USA–Israel Binational Science Foundation (est. 1972) and the German–Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (est. 1986).^[3]

The Ministry of Science, Technology and Space funds thematic research centres and is responsible for international scientific co-operation. The Ministry's National Infrastructure Programme aims to create a critical mass of knowledge in national priority fields and to nurture the younger generation of scientists. Investment in the programme mainly takes the form of research grants, scholarships and knowledge centres. Over 80% of the ministry's budget is channelled towards research in academic institutions and research institutes, as well as towards revamping scientific infrastructure by upgrading existing research facilities and establishing new ones. In 2012, the ministry resolved to invest NIS 120 million over three years in four designated priority areas for research: brain science; supercomputing and cybersecurity; oceanography; and alternative transportation fuels. An expert panel headed by the Chief Scientist in the Ministry of Science, Technology and Space chose these four broad disciplines in the belief that they would be likely to exert the greatest practical impact on Israeli life in the near future.^[3]

The main ongoing programmes managed by the Israel Innovation Authority, previously known as the Office of the Chief Scientist within the Ministry of the Economy are: the R&D (Research and Development) Fund; Magnet Tracks (est. 1994); Tnufa (est. 2001) and the Technological Incubator Programme (est.1991). Between 2010 and 2014, the Office of the Chief Scientist initiated several new programmes:^[3]

• Grand Challenges Israel (since 2014): an Israeli contribution to the Grand Challenges in Global Health programme, which is dedicated to tackling global health and food security challenges in developing countries; Grand Challenges Israel is offering grants of up to NIS 500 000 at the proof of concept/feasibility study stage.
• Research and development in the field of space technology (2012): encourages research to find technological solutions in various fields.
• Technological Entrepreneurship Incubators (2014): encourages entrepreneurial technology and supports start-up technology companies.
• Magnet – Kamin programme (2014) provides direct support for applied research in academia that has potential for commercial application.
• Cyber – Kidma programme (2014): promotes Israel's cybersecurity industry.
• Cleantech – Renewable Energy Technology Centre (2012): supports research through projects involving private–public partnerships in the field of renewable energy.
• Life Sciences Fund (2010): finances the projects of Israeli companies, with emphasis on biopharmaceuticals, established together with the Ministry of Finance and the private sector.
• Biotechnology – Tzatam programme (2011): provides equipment to support research and development in life sciences. The Chief Scientist supports industrial organizations and the PBC provides research institutions with assistance.
• Investment in high-tech industries (2011): encourages financial institutions to invest in knowledge-based industries, through a collaboration between the Office of the Chief Scientist and the Ministry of Finance.

Another source of public research funding is the Forum for National Research and Development Infrastructure (Telem). This voluntary partnership involves the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of the Economy and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Space, the Planning and Budgeting Committee and the Ministry of Finance. Telem projects focus on establishing infrastructure for research and development in areas that are of common interest to most Telem partners. These projects are financed by the Telem members’ own resources.^[3]

In 2014, Israel topped the world for research  intensity, reflecting the importance of research and innovation for the economy. Since 2008, however, Israel's research intensity has weakened somewhat (4.21% of GDP in 2013), even as this ratio has experienced impressive growth in the Republic of Korea (4.15% in 2014), Denmark (3.06% in 2013) and Germany (2.94% in 2013). The OECD average was 2.40% of GDP in 2014. Business expenditure on research and development (BERD) continues to account for ~84% of GERD, or 3.49% of GDP.^[3]

The share of higher education in gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD) has decreased since 2003 from 0.69% of GDP to 0.59% of GDP (2013). Despite this drop, Israel ranks 8th among OECD countries for this indicator. The lion's share of GERD (45.6%) in Israel is financed by foreign companies, reflecting the large scale of activity by foreign multinational companies and research centres in the country.^[3]

The share of foreign funding in university-performed research is also quite significant (21.8%). By the end of 2014, Israel had received €875.6 million from the European Union's (EU's) Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2007–2013), 70% of which had gone to universities. Its successor, Horizon 2020 (2014–2020), has been endowed with nearly €80 billion in funding, making it the EU's most ambitious research and innovation programme ever. As of February 2015, Israel had received €119.8 million from the Horizon 2020 programme.^[3]

In 2013, more than half (51.5%) of government spending was allocated to university research and an additional 29.9% to the development of industrial technologies. Research expenditure on health and the environment has doubled in absolute terms in the past decade but still accounts for less than 1% of total government GERD. Israel is unique among OECD countries in its distribution of government support by objective. Israel ranks at the bottom in government support of research in health care, environmental quality and infrastructure development.^[3]

There has been insufficient government funding for universities in recent years. University research in Israel is largely grounded in basic research, even though it also engages in applied research and partnerships with industry. Basic research in Israel only accounted for 13% of research expenditure in 2013, compared to 16% in 2006. There has since been an increase in General University Funds and those destined for non-oriented research.^[3]

In 2012, there were 77 282 full-time equivalent researchers in Israel, 82% of whom had acquired an academic education, 10% of whom were practical engineers and technicians and 8% of whom held other qualifications. Eight out of ten (83.8%) were employed in the business sector, 1.1% in the government sector, 14.4% in the higher education sector and 0.7% in non-profit institutions.^[3]

In 2011, 28% of senior academic staff were women, up by 5% over the previous decade (from 25% in 2005). Although the representation of women has increased, it remains very low in engineering (14%), physical sciences (11%), mathematics and computer sciences (10%) relative to education (52%) and paramedical occupations (63%).^[3]

There is a visible ageing of scientists and engineers in some fields. For instance, about three-quarters of researchers in the physical sciences are over the age of 50 and the proportion is even higher for practical engineers and technicians. The shortage of professional staff will be a major handicap for the national innovation system in the coming years, as the growing demand for engineers and technical professionals begins to outpace supply. ^[3]

During the 2012/2013 academic year, 34% of bachelor's degrees were obtained in fields related to science and engineering in Israel. This compares well with the proportion in the Republic of Korea (40%) and most Western countries (about 30% on average). The proportion of Israeli graduates in scientific disciplines and engineering was slightly lower at the master's level (27%) but dominated at PhD level (56%).^[3]

Recent statistics support the assertion that Israel may be living on the ‘fruits of the past’, that is to say, on the heavy investment made in primary, secondary and tertiary education during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Between 2007 and 2013, the number of graduates in physical sciences, biological sciences and agriculture dropped, even though the total number of university graduates progressed by 19% (to 39 654). Recent data reveal that Israeli educational achievements in the core curricular subjects of mathematics and science are low in comparison to other OECD countries, as revealed by the exam results of Israeli 15-year-olds in the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment. Public spending on primary education has also fallen below the OECD average. The public education budget accounted for 6.9% of GDP in 2002 but only 5.6% in 2011. The share of this budget going to tertiary education has remained stable at 16–18% but, as a share of GDP, has passed under the bar of 1%. There is concern at the deteriorating quality of teachers at all levels of education and the lack of stringent demands on students to strive for excellence.^[3]

In recent years, Israel encountered the problem of shortage of specialists in the high-tech industry. Now high technology sector is rapidly growing and demand for tech talent increasing as well - the further growth of the industry depends on it.^[40][41] The shortage also generates a significant and disproportionate increase in salaries, which causes companies to look for new employees abroad.^[42][43] To solve the problem Israel's Council for Higher Education has already launched a five-years program to increase the number of graduates from computer science and engineering programs by 40%.^[44]

Israel is investing heavily in technologies such as AI and data science, smart mobility, digital health and e-governance through Digital Israel, a series of national programmes that include the Fuel Choices and Smart Mobility Initiative.^[45]

Digital Israel is the concrete expression of the government's Digital Policy for 2017–2022. This NIS 1.5 billion (about US$425 million) initiative aims to make Israel a global leader in this domain. The programme plans to leverage Israeli expertise in information and communication technologies (ICTs) to accelerate economic growth, reduce socio-economic disparities and make governance smarter, faster and citizen-friendlier.^[45]

The programme is led by the Headquarters for the National Digital Israel Initiative, placed under the Ministry of Social Equality; this body collaborates with ministries, local authorities, companies and non-profit organizations.

In 2018, Israel embarked on a five-year National Programme for Digital Health. The stated aims are to create a new national economic growth engine, advance Israel's clinical and academic research and create a local digital health care system that is among the best in the world. The programme is backed by an investment of NIS 898 million (ca US$256 million) and implemented by multiple governmental bodies, including the Ministry of Health, the Ministry for Social Equality (Digital Israel), the Ministry of the Economy and Industry, the Israeli Innovation Authority and the Council for Higher Education.^[45][46]

Israel has seven research universities: Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the University of Haifa, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot. Other scientific research institutions include the Volcani Institute of Agricultural Research in Beit Dagan, the Israel Institute for Biological Research and the Soreq Nuclear Research Center. The Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center at Sde Boker is an alternative energy research institute established in 1987 by the Ministry of National Infrastructures to study alternative and clean energy technologies.

Israeli universities are ranked among the top 50 academic institutions in the world in the following scientific disciplines: in chemistry (Technion);^[47] in computer science (Weizmann Institute of Science, Technion, Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University);^[48] in mathematics and natural sciences (Hebrew University, Technion)^[49] and in engineering (Technion).^[50]

In 2009, Mor Tzaban, an Israeli high school student from Netivot, won first prize in the First Step to Nobel Prize in Physics competition. In 2012, Yuval Katzenelson of Kiryat Gat won first prize with a paper entitled "Kinetic energy of inert gas in a regenerative system of activated carbon." The Israeli delegation won 14 more prizes in the competition: 9 Israelis students won second prize, one won third prize and one won fourth prize.^[51]

Except universities, Israel has seven R&D centers in the periphery. These centers were established by the Ministry of Science and Technology, and include Migal ^[52] and the Dead Sea and Arava science center.^[53] Their orientation is based on applied science and the dissemination of scientific knowledge to the general population. To date, seven centers are working with significant academic impact and relevance to the region.

The number of Israeli publications stagnated between 2005 and 2014, according to Thomson Reuters' Web of Science (Science Citation Index Expanded). Consequently, the number of Israeli publications per million inhabitants also declined: between 2008 and 2013, it dropped from 1 488 to 1 431; this trend reflects a relative constancy in scholarly output in the face of relatively high population growth (1.1% in 2014) for a developed country and near-zero growth in the number of full-time equivalent researchers in universities. Between 2005 and 2014, Israeli scientific output was particularly high in life sciences. Israeli universities do particularly well in computer science but publications in this field tend to appear mostly in conference proceedings, which are not included in the Web of Science.^[3]

Israeli publications have a high citation rate and a high share of papers count among the 10 percent most-cited. The share of papers with foreign co-authors is almost twice the OECD average, which is typical of small countries with a developed scientific and technological ecosystem. A team of 50 Israeli scientists work full-time at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which operates the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Israel was granted observer status in 1991 before becoming a fully fledged member in 2014. An Israeli delegation headed by President Shimon Peres visited the particle accelerator in 2011.^[54]

Israeli scientists collaborate mostly with Western countries such as the European Union and the United States but there has been strong growth in recent years in collaboration with East Asian countries such as China, Japan, and South Korea, India, and the Southeast Asian city state of Singapore.^[3]

Research conducted at Israeli universities and institutes is shared with the private sector through technology transfer (TT) units.^[55] Israel's first university TT unit, Yeda, was established by the Weizmann Institute of Science in the 1950s.^[56] Research in such fields as arid and semi-arid zone agricultural engineering was transferred to kibbutzim and private farmers on a gratis basis and agricultural knowledge was shared with developing countries.^[57]

In 1964, Yissum, the technology transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was founded.^[58]

Since the 1990s, the traditional dual mission of universities of teaching and research has broadened to include a third mission: engagement with society and industry. This evolution has been a corollary of the rise of the electronics industry and information technology services, along with a surge in the number of research personnel following the wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union.^[3]

Israel has no specific legislation regulating the transfer of knowledge from the academic sector to the general public and industry. There were attempts in 2004 and 2005 to introduce bills encouraging the transfer of knowledge and technology for the public benefit but, as these attempts failed, each university has since defined its own policy.^[3]

All Israeli research universities have technology transfer offices. Recent research conducted by the Samuel Neaman Institute has revealed that, between 2004 and 2013, the universities’ share of patent applications constituted 10–12% of the total inventive activity of Israeli applicants. This is one of the highest shares in the world and is largely due to the intensive activity of the universities’ technology transfer offices. The Weizmann Institute's technology transfer office, Yeda, has been ranked the third-most profitable in the world. Through exemplary university–industry collaboration, the Weizmann Institute of Science and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries have discovered and developed the Copaxone drug for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Copaxone is Teva's biggest-selling drug, with US$1.68 billion in sales in the first half of 2011. Since the drug's approval by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1996, it is estimated that the Weizmann Institute of Science has earned nearly US$2 billion in royalties from the commercialization of its intellectual property.^[3]

In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly's Economic and Financial Committee adopted an Israeli-sponsored draft resolution on agricultural technology transfer to developing countries. The resolution called on developed countries to make their knowledge and know-how accessible to the developing world as part of the UN campaign to eradicate hunger and dire poverty by 2015. The initiative is an outgrowth of Israel's many years of contributing its know-how to developing nations, especially Africa, in the spheres of agriculture, fighting desertification, rural development, irrigation, medical development, computers and the empowerment of women.^[59]

As new technology companies require money and seed capital to grow and thrive, Israel's science and technology sector is backed by a strong venture capital industry. Between 2004 and 2013, the Israeli venture capital industry played a fundamental role in funding the development of Israel's high-tech sector. In 2013, Israeli companies had r