10/10/2021

The annual budget of research foundations in Israel increased 2.4-fold within a decade

The PBC’s annual budget for investing in research foundations between 2011-2022:

  • The research fund budget is almost 2.5 times larger: from NIS 536 million to NIS 1297 million.
  • The National Science Foundation is almost 2 times larger: from NIS 311 million to NIS 589 million.
  • The European R&D Program’s budget grew almost threefold: from NIS 202 million to NIS 594 million.1

 

Unprecedented investments in research: The annual budget of research foundations in Israel grew almost 2.5-fold over the past decade. The increase in budgets is the result of the PBC’s policy, which views the research foundations as the backbone of basic and competitive research, whose strengthening is vital and necessary to preserve the State of Israel’s international status. The budgetary additions enable the increase in the number of research grants, larger research grant amounts, and their improved quality.

  • The most substantial increase in the budgets of local research foundations is reflected by the increased budget of the National Science Foundation from NIS 311 million in 2011-2012 to NIS 589 million in 2021-2022. The National Science Foundation is an association designed to “assess, select and support basic research grants in the context of the humanities and social studies, life sciences, medicine, exact sciences and technology, by way of providing research grants for basic research proposals, which will be selected by way of a competitive process on the basis of scientific excellence and quality.”
  • The budget of the European R&D Program grew threefold: The share of the PBC in terms of the program’s membership fees is 50% of Israel’s membership fees. The percentage of the PBC’s share of the Program’s budget grew from NIS 202 million in 2011-2012 to NIS 594 million in 2021-2022. It should further be noted that, in 2021-2022, the important Horizon Europe program is expected to begin. The details of the program and Israel’s participation in it have yet to be agreed upon, and, accordingly, the PBC’s involvement in the 2021-2022 program is yet to be finalized, and it may certainly grow in the future. Israel’s involvement over the first two years of the program will be determined by the ratio between Israeli GDP and European GDP, but the mechanism is expected to change in the future and to be based on the scope of actual wins on the part of Israeli participants in the Program.
  • Since 2013, the PBC has also provided the budget for the NSF-BSF research grant program: This is a prestigious program that involves scientific collaboration between Israeli and American researchers. The program provides research grants for a variety of research fields, including exact sciences, engineering and computer science (STEM), natural and life sciences, planetary and environmental science, economics, psychology and more. The total budget of the Program in 2020-2021 was NIS 38.3 million. For Israeli researchers, this is a highly important program that significantly expands the possibilities of research and collaboration with American science, which is considered to be a global leader.

 

The 2016-2022 multiannual program especially emphasized the subject of research infrastructures at various levels: national and system-wide research infrastructures, institutional research infrastructures and personal research infrastructures. This special emphasis is reflected by the addition of NIS 620 million to the PBC’s multiannual program, which are dedicated to this purpose, and especially for the following programs: Quantum science and technologies, personalized medicine, data science and artificial intelligence, and the strengthening and upgrading of research equipment (including personal research equipment for new and longstanding researchers, and for institutional research equipment), and more.

[1] The share of the PBC alone constitutes 50% of the State of Israel’s membership fees with regard to this program, as stated below.