This is what the National Council for Research and Development recommended to the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology. The Ministry's research grants fund, worth approximately NIS 180 million per year, will place significant emphasis on the areas of national priority and national programs will be formulated in these areas
The recommendations of the Committee for the Formation of National Scientific-Technological Priority Areas of the Council for Civil Research and Development (MoLMOP) were presented today (Sunday, 4.9/212) to the Ministerial Committee for Innovation chaired by Minister Orit Farkash HaCohen. The recommendations were formulated further to Government Resolution XNUMX and the guidance of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology Orit Farkash HaCohen, the MoLMOP, to formulate areas of national technological-scientific priority 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 (MOLMOP) 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: bio-convergence, 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 worthy of support in each of the fields, the MoLMOP recommends establishing for each field, 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, namely: 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 Grants Fund 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 (4.9/XNUMX) 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 to the MoLMOP the important task of recommending to me technological fields that we should promote at the national level. The criteria I defined for the MoLMOP 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 MOLMDP, who chaired the committee: "After about a year of discussion meetings and studying the R&D topics in which the countries of the world invest, and from a comprehensive and horizontal view, the MOLMDP committee chose five topics that it found to be strategic and essential within the competition the global 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 multidisciplinary which will likely lead in the future and especially will 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 benefited from an excess return and investment return. 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, CEO of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology: "Israel's scientific-technological leadership is an essential part of the country's civil resilience, 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 based on innovation and advanced technologies. The thorough 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 regard."
This is how the MoLMOP came to a decision
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 specified in the Law of the MoLMOP (s. 5). For this purpose, a dedicated committee was established within the council, which numbered 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 topics of national importance in reference countries.
b) Reviewing the procedures for selecting R&D topics in the funding bodies in Israel: the Innovation Authority, VT, TLM, chief scientists and examining the working methods of the Ministry of Intelligence to identify harmful technologies.
c) 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.
e) The selection and final ranking of R&D subjects 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 areas are selected in Israel and around the world, and it was also presented with 14 R&D areas (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 issues one more time, examined the rankings and recommended the following research areas: bio-convergence, 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 worthy of support in each of the fields, the MoLMOP recommends establishing for each field, 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, namely: quantum, artificial intelligence (AI) and data science.
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