Technology Transfer in Israel

• The higher education in Israel and its influence on the the High-Tech Industry.

• Transference of Technology in Israeli Institutions.

• Israeli relations with CERN.

• Conclusions

General Comments on Israeli Education and Research

• Israeli Population 7.4 Millions habitants.

• GDP (PPP)/capita=28.4K$ (Colombia 8.8K$).

• Unemployment ~6.5% (not very high taking into account 1M immigration wave, and in particular the present economic crisis, normally ~6%)

• 8 Universities (7 with large Research Programs) & 60 Academies/Colleges.

• % of GDP for Civilian R&D: 4.8%• Average monthly wage:1.9K$.• TECHNION created in 1924 & HU

Jerusalem in 1925, Weizmann in 1935 (in 1948: 1,600 students, in 2007: 260,000)

TECHNION(HEP, TH&EXP)Haifa Univ (no HEP)

Tel-Aviv University (HEP TH&EXPBar-Ilan University (no HEP)

Open University Hebrew Uni. Jerusalem

(HEP TH)Weizmann Inst., Rehovot

(HEP TH&EXP)

Univ. of Ber-Sheva(HEP TH&EXP)

General Comments on Israeli Education and Research• Education has always been a priority in Israel and the

first two Universities were established 24 years before the existence of the State of Israel.

• Presently, 24% of the civilian labor force have 16+ years of schooling (50% of the young population goes through tertiary education)

• In the early period, research was mainly driven by Agricultural Research, out of the need of transforming the dessert and swamps.

• Serious Industrial Research only started in the late 70’s early 80’s (mainly electronics and communication).

• In 85 Law to Encourage Industrial R&D was approved. Fund was established, that reached 400M$ in 2000-1

• Physics Research started in Jerusalem, following the Racah School, and at the Technion, following the Rosen School. This, together with some new immigrants formed most of the Theorists, while Experimentalists were formed by sending them abroad in the 50’s and 60’s, where they participated in some important discoveries.

– Funding for Basic Science is mainly done through the National Science Foundation ( depending on the Academy of Science and Humanities)

Civilian R&D as % of GDP

Source: Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel

4.7% of GDP in 2007

Higher Education in Israel

• Growth of number of academic institutions in Israel in the last 17 years.

Higher Education in Israel A Quick Glance: Facts & Figures

1990 2007

INSTITUTIONS 21 62

• Universities 7 7

• Open University 1 1

• Art Academies 2 2

• Comprehensive Colleges 0 9

• Engineering Colleges 2 7

• Teacher Training Colleges 7 27

• Non-Budgeted Comprehensive Colleges 2 9

STUDENTS 89,000 STUDENTS 89,000 256,438256,438

Physics Students in Israel• Although there

was a general drop of Physics Students in the late 90’s, this trend has changed considerably, mainly due to the immigration from Science minded Students from Russia as well as the High-Tech boom.

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

Undergrad. HEP

1999

2004

2007

2008

Graduate

Total

Male

Female

Good Scientific Education leads also to a high level of publications

Including in Physics

But not only in Physics

Overview of Technology Transfer in Israeli Academia

• Technology Transfer in Israeli Academia has a long tradition, where firms loosely related to Academic Institutions specialized in Technology Transfer were established as early as 1959.

• This Technology Transfer firms (YISSUM for the Hebrew University, RAMOT for the University of Tel Aviv, YEDA for the Weizmann Institute and others for the various institutions) have as a main role to shield the researcher, as well as the Academic Institution, from any legal problem related to a given invention, while taking care of the aspects of Intellectual Property, obtaining the corresponding patents, finding commercial partners, setting up the licensing arrangements and transfer of royalties to the University and to the researcher.

Overview of Technology Transfer in Israeli Academia

The main aspects of such a Technology Transfer firm are:

• Evaluate the potential interest of a given idea.• Place a Patent Application (before any scientific publication).

These patent applications are done in the name of the Technology Transfer firm.

• Find potential Industrial Partners. This is extremely important, since in many cases, the final utilization for a given idea is not what it was originally intended.

• Extend the Patent Applications to the relevant countries, following the potential Industrial partners.

• Perform licensing arrangements to outside firms. 70% of these licensing are to firms outside the country (to be compared to 10% in the USA and between 50% at Oxford and 75% at Imperial College in the UK).

• Deal with the commercial aspects, as well as the return of royalties.

Overview of Technology Transfer in Israeli Academia

• The fact that this Technology Transfer firms act as independent bodies (unlike the situation in other countries), with their employees (typically 10 to 20) not being part of the Academic Institution, gives them a high incentive to find the most successful partner.

• In exchange, some of these firms receive part of the royalties. In the case of YEDA, 3% of the royalties remain within the firm. The researcher that has produced the idea gets in general 40% of the royalties in all Academic Institutions, while the Institution itself gets ~60%, which are for the most invested in endowment funds.

• YISSUM and YEDA have been the most successful of these Technology Transfer firms. YEDA, in particular, registers ~80 patents per year and it has achieved royalties that have increase from 98M$ in 2003 to more than 150M$ in 2005, 180M$ in 2006 and 200M$ in 2007.

• 75% of these revenues originating in the Biological Field (compare to 60% of the scientific activity in Biology at the Weizmann Institute).

Overview of Technology Transfer in Israeli Academia• The Israeli Government, via the Office of the Chief Scientist of

the Ministry of Industry, Labor and Trade, complements the above activities in the Academia by financing a series of initiatives that emphasize common projects between Industry and Academia. The main programs are:

– MAGNET: this program encourages the creation of consortium of Industries and Academic Institutions in the development of new technologies. These are long term programs with a total envelope per project of up to 36M$ over a 5 year period (up to 8.5M$/year, with the government covering up to 80% of the budget). The program exists for more than 10 years and 150 Companies have participated.

– MAGNETON: this program supports the Transfer of Technology from the Academy to Industry and is mainly dedicated to perform feasibility proof. Its overall envelope per project is 800K$ per project over a period of up to 2 years, 66% financed by Government funding.

– NOFAR: It provides assistance to Academic Research supported by Industry on feasibility studies to pass from basic to applied research. Typical Government funds are between 10 to 30K$ per project.

The above programs are complemented by a series of 20-25 “Industrial Incubators”, which range from Projects in the phase of applicability to new enterprises and Start-Ups, supported up to 85% by Government funds.

This kind of strong TT effort has had an impact in the number of patents

As well as in the importance of High-Tech in the Industrial Production

• Sales of High-Tech products have reached 21B$ in 2008, with a yearly growth of 10%.

Relations with CERN• CERN is the largest European Organization. It was established in 1954

by UNESCO and it includes 20 member states. Its annual budget is 1BCHF.

• Israel has been the first paying Observer State of CERN. This Status includes now India, Japan, Russia, Turkey and the USA.

• In August 1991 a Protocol to the Agreement was signed and renewed several times since then (last time in December 2006). The agreement is financed by the Ministries of Science, Culture and Sports (13%) and of Industry Trade and Labour (87%).

• The last version of the agreement includes an overall contribution corresponding of 25% of what would be the total contribution of Israel as a CERN Member State. The framework of this agreement provides 27% in cash and 73% in-kind, by Israeli firms participating in CERN tenders.

• In October 2004 an additional Protocol to the Agreement was signed, by which Israel increases its contribution by 50% for a period of 2 years. The additional contribution was intended to help the LHC Experiments and the GRID Project, by covering 50% of the cost of products purchased in Israeli Industry.

• Typically during these years (2004-2005), the Israeli returns was 130%, while for the normal contribution varies between 90-110%.

Relations with CERN• Cash contribution support a number of programs:

– 1) Fellows and Associates Program:• The regular fellowship program is expanded to include Israeli Fellows,

competing on equal footing as their European colleagues, as well as CASS.

– 2) Industrial Associates program:• engineers from Israeli Industries have spent various periods at CERN

working in the large LHC Experiments and in IT. Over 10 such posts have been funded in the last 5 years (from firms like CHIARO, BATM, INTEL, NICE, MEKOROT, etc.) working for long periods at CERN.  

– 3) Doctoral Technical and Summer Students programs:• 29 Summer Students in the last 8 years (4 Palestinians)• 3 PhD students working on CLIC and on Signal Processing.

– 4) Israeli Technical Associates:• The program supports Engineers and Physicists from European Countries

working for the TC of the large LHC Experiments (12 during the last 7 years).

– 5) GRID project (mainly Israeli software engineers working on the central GRID development, spending part of the time in Israel).

4 Have become Associate Professors

at Technion and Weizmann2 Have positions of responsibility

in Industry1 is the director of the largest

Educational Scientific Exhibit in Israel.

1 is working as Assistant Professor in the USA

R&D and Industrial Contracts with CERN

• Transmission elements: Fiber optics and converters.• Very strong contacts with FIBERNET (small firm (150

employees) with a lot of flexibility and network connections to other firms. This allowed to produce various custom products for 3 experiments, for a total of 2.2MCHF:

– Large number of halogen-free multi-fiber bundles and patch-cords

– Development of custom made patch-panels and fiber supports.

– Development of single to multimode optical panels, using connections to another R&D firm (COLORCHIP)

– Development of special high density connectors for Si detectors (ALICE)

– Development with a cable firm (Superior) of special LV cables.

• The firm got an special recognition (prize) from 3 of the LHC experiments for their excellent work. They are, however, not included in most of the general CERN contracts for infrastructure.

• Typically, only 5% of the firms involved with CERN get such a recognition.

R&D and Industrial Contracts with CERN• Production of custom electronics boards:

– Various small to mid-size industries have a lot of experience in small production series.– They are not afraid of jumping into new projects that constitute a challenge.– 80% of the world market in PCB optical inspection machines is shared by 2 Israeli firms.– Major experience in flexible PCB’s.– Major contractor has been PCB Technologies in Migdal Haemek.

• Orders of over 15MCHF during the last 7 years, partly paid by Israel (84%), partly paid by the experiments:

• 6.5MCHF (ATLAS), 1.5MCHF (CMS), 0.3 MCHF(ALICE), 6.7MCHF (various CERN divisions).

R&D and Industrial Contracts with CERN• Al welding and precision mechanics:

– Due to the work with the Military and Aircraft Industry, firms are used to high quality requirements; this includes their sub-contractors (this is important, since the large firms have very high overheads).

– Experience, combined with NETWORKING have been a critical element in obtaining excellent results in Orbital Welding (UNIWELD Ltd) for the Heat Shields of the EC Toroids. According to the firm, the experience that they have gained with the CERN project has been important for jumping into other contracts.

– High quality welding (usually complemented by penetration tests), combined with precision machining (2 of the firms: MARESCO and TAL Technologies got also a CERN award), as well as measurement equipment, have been crucial to the success of the various projects.

– Very high quality extrusion facilities, mainly motivated by the fabrication of complicated Al profiles for antennas have been important in the production of various profiles used in the ATLAS experiment (EXTAL)

Israeli Industrial and Cash Contribution to CERN

TOTALOthersALICECMSATLASExp. Inf.Admin.Tech ServITLHCLEPyear0.630.6319920.450.190.040.2219930.530.5319940.670.290.180.180.0219950.40.040.060.10.110.0919960.30.10.160.04199710.510.110.010.3719981.510.010.250.730.470.0519991.240.060.280.150.320.4320001.590.490.020.030.630.4220011.370.010.250.010.060.450.5920021.630.010.610.130.460.210.2120031.520.050.910.010.410.1420042.430.120.21.760.090.030.080.1520052.230.551.50.010.090.0820061.390.10.440.550.190.1120071.590.020.340.430.520.060.22200820.480.251.596.50.290.653.263.53.021.42TOTAL0.40.10.3Cash Cont0.60.10.30.2Undefined 199921.480.251.596.50.290.653.363.83.321.72Tot aft. Corr

2.60.91.7Tech. Ass.0.670.050.470.110.04Ind. Ass.0.560.56GRID-LCG0.060.06CLIC25.370.620.252.548.670.290.653.473.843.321.72TOTAL

2.612.61Progr. IL27.98TOTAL

While Israel makes good use of the CERN facilities, its contribution/habitant to the Infrastructure is the largest among the Observer Countries

• Contribution in CHF per habitant to the CERN Infrastructure for each of the CERN Observer States.

CCORE contrib. to LHC/1M population

Manpower overview in HEP

• Although Total # of HEP Physicists/habitants, as well as student proportion is close to the European average, this is strongly dominated by TH.

• There is a problem in advancing/hiring staff in Experimental HEP, mainly due to the opposition of physicists in other fields.

• This is a general problem in many small countries.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Run. Exp. Fture. Facil. Acc. Phys. Theory

PhD St.

Post-Docs

Scientists

Total internal yearly budget for HEP, excluding staff salaries: ~5MCHF

Industrial Conclusions• To be able to profit from projects that push technology to its limits, it is important

to have industrial plans that emphasize given fields of competence (precision or micro mechanics, electronics, signal transmission, etc.), where firms are not scare to jump into new projects.

• It is important to have a good contact with the large laboratories, in order to assess the potential needs, early in the R&D process (the Israeli Industrial Associates Programme is a good example), as well as people that can translate the requirements into potential producers (not always easy, and requires a good ILO).

• It is crucial to be aware of the potential capabilities of the small industries in the country. They are the only ones that can offer competitive costs and willingness to jump into new projects.

• It is crucial to establish good NETWORKS between small industries, so that they are aware of each others capabilities and try to share the work according to their capabilities. It is better to get a combined contract than to keep a fabrication secret that will be useless after a few years, and knowing the status of development of a given product of the competition, allows you to evaluate if you want to jump on a share contract that includes the common know-how.

• Being part of such large projects, like the LHC, provide firms with a lot of pride and the self-confidence needed to move into new products.