From now on, this will be an acceptable method for establishing research institutes, said Minister Olmert at the inauguration ceremony of the Institute for Nanotechnology at the Technion, which was established with a donation from the Berry Foundation from the US, government investment and additional contributions obtained by the Technion
Avi Blizovsky
From the right: Prof. Uri Sivan, director of the Russ Berry Institute for Nanotechnology Research at the Technion; Contributor Angelina Berry; the president of the Technion, Yitzhak Apluig; Minister Ehud Olmert
Minister Ehud Olmert announced on Sunday a new financing method to promote national projects. Government dollar for outsider dollar. This is what Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Ehud Olmert said. According to him, this method will now be valid for investments in infrastructure like the one made in the Nanotechnology Institute established at the Technion with the help of a fund named after Russell Berry, after he won the support of the chief scientist, Dr. Eli Oper, as well as a listening ear in the Ministry of Finance. This time the treasury officials showed creative thinking and realized that it is not worth letting such an opportunity slip away.
The idea to match the donations came from Angelica Berry, the widow of Russell Berry, founder of a company for the production of quality stuffed fur toys that are sold as souvenirs and at relatively high prices. "She came, and in her humble way she said: 'The foundation requests to donate 26 million dollars to the development of the field of nanotechnology, which is the field of the future and Israel must not fall behind in it, but even if this amount is large for a single donor, it is not enough to establish an institute of a size that can compete with institutes others in the world and attract the best manpower to it, make sure that the state gives a dollar for every dollar of the donation. I managed to convince the finance people and I want to thank them for that."
The Technion initially pledged to bring in an additional 26 million dollars from various sources, thereby increasing the investment in the Nanotechnology Institute to 78 million dollars, and finally the friends of the Technion surprised and managed to raise an additional 10 million dollars, so that the total investment in the institute will reach 88 million dollars. It was learned that, among other things, a building will also be built to serve the nanoelectronics laboratory with the donation of the Zisafel brothers, owners of the Red Group.
In a conversation with InformationWekk, Berry said: "I want everyone to do like me. Perhaps not in the field of nanotechnology, but in other fields that are important to Israel, because the method of leveraging and doubling government investment will bring Israel to the status of a magnet in the technological field and help the continued existence and prosperity of an advanced high-tech industry."
In response to our question, Minister Olmert said that Israel invests a considerable amount of its budget in R&D, "in terms of percentages, we invest over 4% of GNP. This is a considerable rate, but since we are a small country, in absolute terms it is not such a large amount. There are companies that each alone invest such an amount in R&D, therefore we must use such levers to increase the investment."
The president of the Technion, Yitzhak Apluig said at the ceremony: "This is a holiday for the Technion and the State of Israel. We thank Mrs. Berry for one of the largest donations given to the Technion and thank Olmert for doubling the budget. He is a good friend of the Technion and without his initiative, the institute would not have been established." Apluig also thanked the chief scientist at the TMS, Dr. Eli Ofer, for his assistance, and said that over 50 groups at the Technion are conducting groundbreaking experiments. He also added that "the budget will make it possible to hire Israeli researchers who would otherwise have stayed to work at universities in the USA. The equipment will be available to all researchers in Israel from academia and industry."
The director of the new institute, Prof. Uri Sivan, presented the donor with a silicon chip on which the Technion symbol is printed, with the institute's symbol printed inside the dot above the letter i in the word Technion, including the name of the foundation in a size that can only be seen at all by magnifying several hundred times, and of course there is also a photograph in the box Magnified of the tiny dot that is less than a human hair thick.
"Fast and small electronics, strong medical diagnostics markets, nanometer-sized capsules that deliver drugs for specific purposes, new types of lubricants, lighter materials and nanoscale light sources are just a few examples of the emerging fruits of nanotechnology. However, these impressive achievements are only a pale shadow of the revolution that awaits us as we slowly reveal the principles of the organization and the secrets of the complex and functional way of creating this organization from nanometer-sized building blocks, based on the information encoded in these building blocks," says Prof. Sivan . "We look in awe at nature, the most basic example of nanotechnology. The most primitive bacteria, with a wonderful orchestration of dozens of biochemical processes, which together define life and clarify the infinite possibilities inherent in this orchestration. However, this is not the end either. Man-made engineering, such as electronics, communication, and control theories, may expand the tools and concepts of biology beyond its natural evolution, and offer indescribable value to the well-being of the human race. A transparent integration of the life sciences, physics, chemistry and engineering in the most basic unit of length - the nanometer - will undoubtedly lead to ultimate control over matter, without distinguishing between living and inanimate matter.
"We have started a long journey, which presents us with enormous challenges, both conceptual and practical. We have taken a few steps in an endless journey. The deep canyons and high cliffs are still ahead, but what a view! Would we like to be left behind?”
Miniaturization is a national priority
A nanotechnology institute will be established at the Technion - but not everyone is celebrating in the academy
By Tamara Traubman, "Haaretz" academic affairs reporter
In a festive ceremony held yesterday in Jerusalem, the heads of the Technion and the Ministry of the TMT announced the establishment of a new nanotechnology institute. The institute will be established with an investment of 88 million dollars - about 30 million of public funds - and will be the largest established so far in Israel. The financial investment in it is almost unprecedented - both in the new and developing field of nanotechnology, and in general in university research centers. But senior officials at several universities are not ready to take part in the Technion's celebration, arguing that the money to establish the institute was awarded to the Technion in an unacceptable procedure, without a tender or "roll call", and in a way that discriminates against other universities. In the last two weeks, in closed rooms and in personal conversations, the top of higher education in Israel has been resounding with claims and criticism against the Technion and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Nanotechnology, a word that has been heard in many living room conversations in recent years, is a science based on tiny building blocks of a millionth of a millimeter in size. Scientists in the field claim to realize imaginative developments such as "nanobots", tiny robots that will inspect the circulatory system and repair diseased tissues, or sophisticated computer chips that are faster than those that exist today. In a way reminiscent of the high-tech euphoria, at the Technion - and in Israel in general - there is a percentage of the "nano fever". Analysts predict that in 2015 the field of nanotechnology will have an annual turnover of one trillion dollars - and everyone wants to be there when it happens.
Nanotechnology institutes were already established about five years ago in several universities, but on a much smaller scale than the institute that the Technion will establish. The Nano Institute at Tel Aviv University was established with an initial investment of approximately 10 million dollars, obtained from donations, and another approximately 12 million dollars obtained later from research grants. The Nano Institute at the Hebrew University was established with an initial investment of 20 million dollars and with a plan for a total investment of up to XNUMX million dollars.
How, then, did the Technion manage to raise financial funding for such a fertilizer? The people of the Technion found a donor: Angelica Berry, who heads an American foundation named after her late Jewish husband, Russell Berry. The connection between the Technion and Berry was created a few years ago, but the talks about nanotechnology started about a year ago. Berri is willing to give the Technion a donation of 26 million dollars for a nanotechnology institute - but on one condition: that the state and the Technion, from its sources, each add a similar amount. The Technion decided to raise 36 million dollars, and began efforts to convince the state to allocate the money to the project.
At that time, the nano field was gaining momentum in Israel. The "Forum for National Infrastructures for Research and Development" (Forum Telam) - which includes the National Academy of Sciences, the Ministries of Finance, the Ministry of Defense, Defense and Science, and the Committee for Planning and Budgeting - established in December 2002 a national committee for nanotechnology. Nano has other godfathers, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, who worked tirelessly in the Knesset and outside to establish a private fund for nanotechnology, and his son, Hami Peres, one of the founders and managers of the venture capital fund "Pitango" and the founders of the "Association of Venture Capital Funds".
The committee members decided to define nanotechnology as a field of national priority, assuming that if the field is defined as such, it will be easier to raise funds through unacceptable channels. Prof. Yaakov Ziv, chairman of the TLM Forum and former president of the National Academy of Sciences, says this openly: "There was a feeling that this would allow TLM Minister Ehud Olmert to allocate money to the field. Otherwise he is bound by all kinds of rules on how to distribute the money."
In order to prevent government involvement in the academic management of the universities, the law stipulates that the transfer of money to the universities will only be done through the HOT, as well as in the creation of several government programs that provide grants to researchers who have won a "call for proposals" or "a competitive research fund". The decision to elevate nanotechnology to a field of national priority was not accepted by the government. But, says Prof. Ziv, when the president of the Technion, Prof. Yitzhak Apluig, brought the donor Berry to a meeting with Minister Olmert, he was already convinced and committed to helping.
"It's a combination concocted by Olmert," says a senior official at one of the universities. "They will transfer the money through the VAT, which also contributed a symbolic amount, and this way it will appear that everything is done through a legal channel. But why would they establish the institute in the Technion? I haven't heard of one reason. No university knew about the matter until the whole business was cooked up, no tender was issued."
To illustrate how unusual the scope of the state's participation in the Technion institute is, it is enough to recall the project that received the largest investment from the state - the "Taubex" space telescope, which will be launched in 2006. In this project, the budget reached 7-5 million dollars, spread over several years. In the nano field, the amount received by the Technion is approximately twice as large as the amount allocated so far by the National Committee for Nanotechnology for research in the field at all universities combined.
According to Prof. Ziv, the claims against the Technion's deal "are not practical". According to him, the donor set a deadline of January 1, 2005, and "the choice was whether to be fully transparent in existing frameworks or give up everything." According to Prof. Uri Sion, who will head the Technion's new institute, researchers from other academic institutions will also be able to use the institute's facilities in a "completely equal" manner.
The Chief Scientist of the TMT Ministry, Dr. Eli Ofer, confirmed that the money was transferred without a tender: "In order to do something unusual, you have to do something unusual."
The TMT spokeswoman said in response: "The assistance is provided through the allocation of a chief scientist and the TLM Forum. Any academic institution that brings a donation intended for nanotechnology will receive similar assistance, and this has already been said to all institutions."
"These are state funds that go to the Technion without there being a control mechanism for the use of the money," said a senior official in the higher education system. The senior raised a few more questions: Who will own the intellectual property that will be created there? To the state, which invested money in infrastructure? Or to the Technion, in whose field the research was done? And what about the cases where discoveries were made by researchers who are not from the Technion?
Tamara Traubman
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