What is Israeli research worth? A global ranking, which counts citations of publications, provides surprises and concerns
Yuval Dror
Israeli science and research is recognized all over the world. Distinguished guests from abroad are usually invited to tour the Weizmann Institute, the Technion or one of the universities. According to the accepted opinion, the Jewish genius flourished the wasteland of the Land of Israel and reached incredible scientific achievements. But is this opinion based on accurate data, which makes it possible to compare the quality of science in Israel with that of scientists from other countries? The data exists, but in Israel it is kept secret.
Here are some examples that illustrate the lack of information about the quality of the work of Israeli scientists. It is known that the Israeli scientists involved in computer science are the most influential in the world in their field. The truth is somewhat different. The Swiss scientists, it turns out, are more influential. Since clinical medicine in Israel is excellent, it is likely that the quality of research in Israel in this field is better than the quality of research in Kenya. But according to the data, Israel is ranked 22nd in the world in clinical research, while Kenya is 19th. In space sciences and astrophysics it seems that the United States leads by a considerable margin over other countries, but precisely in this field Israel is ranked first while the United States is only sixth.
A scientist's professional contribution is measured according to one central parameter: publications. It is not for nothing that they say that life in universities is governed by the Publish or Perish rule. To measure scientific quality, do not examine the number of publications but their quality. There is no point in praising a researcher who published 100 articles, not one of which left his mark on his field of research.
In measuring the quality of scientific publications, it is common to assume that if a scientist has published an article that is considered groundbreaking in his field, other researchers will often cite it. Checking the number of citations (taking into account other variables, such as the quality of the journal in which the article was published) usually implies the importance of the article compared to other articles.
The American company ISI Thomson built a business model around the scientific community's need to measure the quality of its work. The company reviews many thousands of journals and analyzes the citations that appear in them. Complex statistical analyzes allow her to point to the most cited scientist in a certain field or to say which country has the most cited researchers in the world. The company produces an "Impact Factor", which shows how great the influence of all scientists from a certain country is on their field, compared to scientists from other countries.
Prof. Gideon Shafsky, a chemist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and formerly the rector of the university, has been engaged in the analysis of the ISI databases in recent years. He purchases the databases partly with funding from the Israel Academy of Sciences. Another source of funding is money that Shafsky receives for the sale of the reports he produces for several institutions in Israel.
Much of the ISI data is not public, as the company sells its databases for a lot of money. Despite this, on the company's website you can find interesting data on Israel's position. Prof. Shafsky also agreed to provide "Haaretz" with data on Israel's position in various fields in the years 2002-1998. The data refer to countries whose researchers published at least 100 articles per year in a certain field.
The analysis of the data shows that the average quality of the publications of the Israeli researchers in astrophysics and space sciences and in the field of materials science, which includes among other things nanotechnology, is the best in the world. Israeli scientists, for example, published 1.32% of all articles in the field of space science and astrophysics. The articles of Israeli researchers in the field are cited about 50% more than the average citation in the field (that is, if an average article in this field was cited six times in the years 2002-1998, articles by Israeli researchers were cited, on average, nine times). In materials science, Israeli scientists published only 0.78% of all publications, but these were cited 57% more than the citation average in the field.
"It should not be concluded from the data that the best articles in these fields come from Israel," explains Shafsky, "but the data shows that the average level of the Israeli articles is the first of its kind in the world. At least some of them belong to the top of the publications in the field."
Other fields in which the Israeli scientists star are computer science (second place), economics and business administration (fourth place) and chemistry (fifth place). Israel ranks seventh in mathematics and eighth in biology and biochemistry. Even in these fields, the articles of the Israeli researchers are cited more compared to the citation average in the field.
Agriculture is deteriorating
But not everything is rosy. One of the problems arising from the data analysis is the lack of uniformity in the quality of the work of the Israeli scientists. While in some areas Israel is a world leader in average citations, in other areas it lags far behind. In the field of ecology and environmental studies, Israel is placed 18th. Articles by Israeli researchers are cited 15% less than the average citations in the field. In immunology Israel ranks 13th, in microbiology 15th, in psychology and psychiatry 14th, in social sciences 18th and in clinical medicine 22nd. In the agricultural sciences there has been a continuous deterioration. In the years 2002-1981, Israel was ranked sixth in the world in terms of the impact of its research on the field. But between 1998 and 2002 it deteriorated to 13th place.
A senior member of the Israeli Academy says about Israel's embarrassing position in the field of clinical medicine: "On average, medical research in Israel is worth nothing." Every doctor wants to be a professor or a senior lecturer, so there is a terrible pressure to publish a lot of papers and quickly. The problem is that doctors don't have the education, research training or time to do good research. Usually those who have education, time and training run after the money and not after the research."
Prof. Dov Lichtenberg, head of the medical school at Tel Aviv University, agrees with this analysis but claims that there is a more fundamental reason for the poor position of Israeli doctors. "The salary of doctors in hospitals is on the face. That's why at 14:00 they run away from the hospitals and at 16:00 report to their private clinic at home, in 'Maccabi', 'Assuta' or anywhere else and work until night. Since in Israel there is no 'protected time for research', as is customary in other countries of the world, our doctors are not freed to engage in research at all. When you take into account that they still have to publish in order to be professors, you understand why their publications are not impressive."
The status of Israeli scientists is also shown in a table produced by ISI, which contains the names of the most cited scientists in the years 1999-1981. The company reviewed 19 million articles, written by 5 million researchers, and located the 250 most cited scientists in 21 different research fields. In this list, which includes about 0.01% of all scientists working in any field, Israel is placed in the respectable 12th place. 37 Israeli scientists entered the prestigious list and Israel is ahead of, among others, Belgium, Denmark, China, Spain, Norway and Russia.
When you look at where the Israeli scientists on the list come from, it becomes clear that most of them work in three research bodies: the Weizmann Institute, with ten scientists (one of them is the president of the institute, Prof. Ilan Hat, whose research included in the list was carried out precisely when he was a member of the Hebrew University faculty). Ten researchers belong to the Hebrew University, nine are from Tel Aviv University. The rest of the scientists on the list are from the Volcani Institute (three researchers), Bar-Ilan University, Haifa University, the Technion, IBM and Compugen. One scientist included in the list works in each of these bodies.
In an open lecture given by Prof. Shafsky in the Chemistry Department at the Hebrew University, he presented data on the cited articles, which led to the inclusion of scientists in the list. According to the data, ten of the articles deal with computer science, five of them deal with mathematics, four with physics, three with molecular biology and the rest with chemistry, astrophysics, engineering and more.
Prof. Gideon Dagan from the Faculty of Engineering at Tel Aviv University, who is on the list of 37, claims that the list is particularly impressive considering the limited dimensions of the Israeli scientific community. "The United States has 3,121 scientists on the list. It's an amazing number, which teaches about its power", he explains. "In addition, it should be remembered that the list includes mainly older scientists, since it takes a few years before an article gains a reputation and they start to cite it."
If the situation of Israel and its scientists is so benign, it is likely that Israeli universities also have an honorable status compared to other research bodies in the world. not always. To rank countries' achievements, ISI only considers citations from publications by researchers working at universities. Six universities operate in Israel (the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University, Haifa University and the Technion). The Weizmann Institute is also considered a university. Citations of articles published by scientists working in non-university research institutes are not counted in this count. Israel comes out rented from this counting method.
Afraid of exposure
On the other hand, when ISI seeks to rate the research institutions themselves, it also includes the citations from articles by scientists belonging to research institutions. When Israeli universities also struggle with research institutes from all over the world, they are pushed to lower places than one would expect.
The data is in the hands of several Israeli institutions, but none of them is ready to publish it officially. Prof. Shafsky, who presented some of the data in the open lecture he gave at the Hebrew University, also asked not to hand over the complete data to "Haaretz". As a reminder, in the years 2002-1998, Israel was placed first in the field of space sciences and astrophysics. The Hebrew University was ranked first among all research institutions in the world in this field, Tel Aviv University took the 49th place and the Weizmann Institute was in the 65th place.
In chemistry, the Weizmann Institute has a leading status among research institutions in Israel. The institute's researchers are ranked 22nd in the world, compared to Tel Aviv University (77), the Hebrew University (83), Bar-Ilan University (116) and Ben-Gurion University (136).
In most cases, the Weizmann Institute takes first place in the quality of the articles its scientists publish, compared to the other research institutions in Israel. The institute ranks first among Israeli research institutions in mathematics (27th in the world), immunology (28th in the world), engineering (8th in the world), molecular biology (26th in the world), neuroscience (10th in the world), computer science (9th in the world) and more. The Weizmann Institute also leads the Israeli institutions in physics, but in this field it only occupies the 52nd place in the world. It is followed by Tel Aviv University (96), the Technion (107), the Hebrew University (109), Bar-Ilan University (119) and Ben-Gurion University (128).
In clinical medicine the situation is far from sympathetic. The Weizmann Institute is in seventh place in the world, the Technion is far behind, in 137th place, and Tel Aviv University is slightly below it, in 142nd place. The situation of the Israeli universities is also difficult in the social sciences. In terms of the researchers' influence on the field in which they operate, they are all placed below the 100th place in the world.
Senior officials at the academic institutions in Israel claim that there is a fear that the measurement method will be to predict everything and only based on that will it be decided who will be promoted and who will not. Others claim that the universities are afraid of publishing the data, because if it turns out that researchers from a certain institution are not valued in the world as they believe, migration to another institution will occur.
"The ISI measurement method must not become an exclusive tool for judging scientists," says Shafsky. "There is a danger that officials and bureaucrats will use this method and reach wrong conclusions, due to a lack of understanding regarding the nature of the various fields. If a doctor comes to your home, checks your pulse and based on that makes a diagnosis, his license should be taken away. On the other hand, if a doctor comes and he doesn't measure the pulse, even then you have to take away his license."
