The recommendations of the committee for the formulation of national scientific-technological priority areas of the Council for Civil Research and Development (CRI) were presented today (Sunday, 9/4) to the Ministerial Committee for Innovation chaired by Minister Orit Parkash HaCohen. The recommendations were formulated following Government Resolution 212 and the guidance of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Orit Farkash HaCohen, the MoLMOP, to formulate national technological-scientific priority areas for the government for the next five years. After hard work, the committee for the formulation of national scientific-technological priority areas of the Civil Research and Development Council (CRI) submitted to the Minister of Innovation, Orit Parkash HaCohen, the national scientific-technological priority areas for the next five years, and these were presented to the government today.
The chosen fields are: Bioconvergence, the sea as a national resource, foodtech, renewable energies and energy storage, and civil industry in space. Later, in order to identify the specific issues deserving of support in each of the areas, the MoLMOP recommends establishing for each area, an independent committee of experts that will guide the funding agencies. In addition, the committee recommends the continuation of government support in the two areas that were previously approved and received initial support and they are: Quantum, artificial intelligence (AI) and data science.
From this, the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology will promote national programs in the selected fields, while dealing with aspects of infrastructure, regulation, investment in research, and more. Among other things, these areas will receive priority within the Research Grant Fund (MI) of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology.
The Ministerial Committee for Innovation chaired by the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Orit Farkash HaCohen, will convene on Sunday (9/4) to present the national priority issues.
Orit Parkash HaCohen, Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology: “I welcome and adopt the recommendations of the National Council for Research and Development after a year of hard work to determine Israel’s technological priority areas.
In the absence of a strategic concept, when I took office, I assigned the important task of recommending to me technological fields that we should promote at the national level.
The criteria I defined for the M&D in the work process were the following: fields that will be at the forefront of global innovation in the next decade, subjects in which Israel has a comparative advantage and/or a strategic need, and subjects that will make a significant contribution to maintaining the scientific and research leadership of the State of Israel.
I congratulate Prof. Lavi and all the members of the forum who invested the year in this important and clear task which is surprising that has not been done until today. The technological priority areas will ensure Israel’s scientific and technological leadership for decades to come.”
Prof. Peretz Lavi, chairman of the MOLMOF, who chaired the committee: “After about a year of discussion meetings and studying the R&D topics in which the countries of the world are investing, and from a comprehensive and broad perspective, the R&D committee chose five topics that it found to be strategic and essential within the framework of global competition and the continued promotion of Israel’s elite technologies for the benefit of its economic future and the preservation of Israeli excellence in the next five years Almost all of them are considered multi-disciplinary which are likely to lead in the future and especially to intensify in the next five years. Moreover, the international review, which we carried out as part of the committee, taught that all the countries that invested in R&D enjoyed an excess return and a return on investments. In addition, the R&D investments strengthened the employment situation, the quality of life and produced excess growth in the countries that set national priorities for themselves in R&D. The State of Israel, which relies on the human resources and knowledge it has accumulated in the fields of high technology, may lose its relative advantage in the leading fields of technology if it abandons these investments. “Without investment in R&D, the country may retreat in its growth and innovation indicators. I would like to thank the members of the committee who devoted their time and energy to the issue voluntarily and without any compensation.”
Hila Hadad Hamelnik, Director General of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology: “Israel’s scientific-technological leadership is an essential part of the civil resilience of the country, and we must maintain and strengthen it. Mapping and defining national priority areas, based on an understanding of the international arena and mapping the relative advantages of Israeli science, are necessary in order to strengthen the various branches of the economy which are based on innovation and advanced technologies. The fundamental work of the committee, headed by Prof. Peretz Lavi, is the basis for a quality policy that will form the infrastructure for the work of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology in the coming years, and it will guide all the relevant government bodies in this context.”
In the Law of Arrangements 2021-22, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology was asked to guide the National Research and Development Council (NRDC), being the state body involved in national R&D issues, to formulate areas of national technological-scientific priority for the government for the next five years, in the areas of civil R&D As detailed in the Law of the MoLMOP (s. 5). For this purpose, a dedicated committee was established within the council, which had 17 members, 7 of which were members of the MoLMOP plenum, representatives of traditional industry and the elite technology industry, the defense establishment, the innovation authority and government ministries.
As part of this committee, comprehensive work was done during 2021-2022 that included the following steps:
A) Examining procedures for prioritizing R&D issues of national importance in reference countries.
B) A review of the procedures for selecting R&D subjects in the funding bodies in Israel: the Innovation Authority, OT, TLM, chief scientists and an examination of the working methods of the Ministry of Intelligence to identify harmful technologies.
third) Collecting information on R&D topics of national importance and examining the criteria for ranking the topics.
d) Presentation of 14 R&D topics and their ranking according to criteria agreed upon by all committee members.
God) The final selection and ranking of R&D topics of national importance by a limited committee which did not include representatives of interested bodies.
As mentioned, for about 12 months, the committee worked to understand the way R&D fields are selected in Israel and around the world, and it was presented with 14 R&D fields (detailed in the full report), which were ranked by the members of the committee according to ten criteria. At the end of this process, a limited committee discussed each of the topics one more time, examined the rankings and recommended the following areas of research: Bioconvergence, the sea as a national resource, foodtech, renewable energies and energy storage, and civil industry in space.
Later, in order to identify the specific issues deserving of support in each of the areas, the MoLMOP recommends establishing for each area, an independent committee of experts that will guide the funding agencies. In addition, the committee recommends the continuation of government support in the two areas that were previously approved and received initial support and they are: Quantum, artificial intelligence (AI) and data science.