The triennial report of the Israel Academy of Sciences describes research excellence alongside a decline in investment in basic research, damage to international relations, and the consequences of the war and legal reform on young faculty, collaborations, and research output.
The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities has published a new triennial report on the state of science in Israel for 2025. This is the fifth report in a series submitted to the government and the Knesset every three years. The report, led by the President of the Academy of Sciences, Prof. David Harel, reviews basic research in four fields – humanities, social sciences, exact sciences, and life and medical sciences – and also examines the state of research infrastructure and the international standing of the Israeli academy. This year, a dedicated chapter was added to the report that examines how the war in 2023–2025 affected human capital, research routines, and ties with the world.
The headline of the report presents a complex picture. On the one hand, Israeli research still enjoys a reputation for excellence and continues to produce successes in the international arena. On the other hand, warning signs are accumulating that explain why academia is warning of a erosion of status. At the heart of the warning is a continuing decline in national investment in academic research, alongside damage to international relations and the profound consequences of the war on research that requires time, functional quiet, and networks of collaboration.
Decline in investments in Israel, compared to a surge in Europe
The most striking statistic, which sounds almost technical, but has a clear political-economic significance, is the erosion of investment in academic research. According to the report, in the last decade, national spending on academic R&D in Israel has decreased by about 4%. This is while in OECD countries, an increase of about 20% in investment in academic R&D was recorded during a similar period. Simply put: Israel continues to be perceived as an R&D powerhouse, but a large part of the burden and risk falls on business R&D and industry, while the academic base that produces knowledge, manpower, and long-term breakthroughs does not receive a similar “tailwind.” The report presents this as an issue that requires policy revision, because scientific status is not maintained over time without continuous investment in basic research.
The effects of the war
The chapter devoted to the effects of the war indicates that the damage is not limited to a temporary disruption to schedules. Higher education institutions have experienced disruptions due to reserve service, teaching and research difficulties, closures, and complex working conditions. But beyond that, the report indicates a deeper damage, which is connected to the issue of internationalization. According to the report and the summaries distributed upon its publication, most international conferences that were supposed to take place in Israel in 2024–2025 have been canceled, and there has been a decrease in invitations for Israeli researchers to conferences and seminars abroad. This is a double blow. It both reduces international exposure to Israeli science, and also makes it difficult for researchers – especially young ones – to build the professional network without which it is difficult to advance.
The report also explicitly addresses the expansion of academic boycotts, both overt and covert. It describes cases of severing ties by central institutions abroad, the exclusion of Israeli scientists from consortiums within European programs, and the cessation of inter-institutional collaborations. In the background, it also notes the fear of a more serious harm to Israel’s status in European Union programs. When you add to this the fact that many research grants, collaborations, and talent recruitment rely on an open door to Europe and the US, you get a picture in which “internationalization” is not an embellishment. It is a basic condition.
The coup d'état and the scientific boycott
This is where another layer comes in that the report emphasizes: the internal crisis surrounding what the government calls the "legal reform" and is more accurately called the "political coup." The report notes that the period before the war was already full of upheavals, and in terms of some of the data, it served as a "shaking backdrop" that was added to the Corona crisis and the war. According to the report, the impact of the war on the status of senior faculty was not disconnected from the socio-political events surrounding the legal reform that was presented in early 2023. The report describes how the public discourse about departures following these events - a discourse that also touched on high-tech and medicine - is also evident in academia. It raises concerns that the internal weakness indicates that institutions abroad have a higher chance of mobility of Israeli faculty members, and at the same time may slow down the absorption of senior faculty members, among other things due to delays in the return of postdoctoral fellows to Israel.
The report also expands on how legal reform and the crisis surrounding the independence of state institutions are increasing the fragility of academia beyond the image aspect. It describes repeated attempts to harm the independence and conduct of academia, and lists examples of moves that are perceived as harming science, the spirit, and culture: legislation that restricts freedom of speech, expanding gender segregation, and taking over or attempting to take over bodies and institutions that make up the infrastructure of knowledge and public authority. Even if not every such move immediately changes the number of publications, it affects the ability of institutions to recruit people, attract partners, and ensure freedom of action for research.
Precisely because of this background, the data on international excellence takes on a double meaning. On the one hand, the report notes that Israel continues to present impressive achievements in ERC grants in the years 2015–2024, which represents high research quality and the ability to compete in a strict judging process. On the other hand, in the 2025 ERC grant round in the Starting track, which is intended for researchers at the beginning of their careers, there was a sharp decline in the success rate, to a low of 8% compared to 29%–32% in previous years. The report suggests several possible explanations, including a change in the evaluation method, a change in the preparation and training processes at institutions, a decrease in the ability of young researchers to concentrate due to the war, a decrease in the absorption of young faculty at certain institutions, and the possibility of a hidden boycott effect. It also emphasizes that it is still too early to determine whether this is an exceptional event or the beginning of a trend.
Harm to young faculty members
The group that the report identifies as the main victim is the young faculty before tenure. For them, a year or two of slowdown is not “another difficult period.” They are a blow to the critical points of a career: accumulating publications, closing collaborations, building an international reputation, and raising competitive grants. The report mentions that the war came after the coronavirus and after an internal crisis surrounding legal reform, and the accumulation of these events intensified the damage to this population in particular. At the same time, the report notes a phenomenon that directly affects laboratory activity: since the outbreak of the war, international postdoctoral fellows have been leaving, and others have not arrived. The result is a daily blow to the laboratory, to collaborations, and to the continuity of projects.
This picture is also compounded by global changes that increase uncertainty. The report mentions a change of administration in the US in early 2025, which would be accompanied by extensive cuts in university budgets and research funding bodies. If such a trend takes hold, it could also harm the ability of Israeli researchers to win American grants and collaborations with US institutions. This creates a reality in which some of the risks come from outside, but a significant portion stem from internal decisions about budgeting, systemic stability, and state-academia relations.
Recommendations: Increasing investment in basic science, restoring international ties, and the independence of academia
This also leads to a “series of recommendations” that recur in the report, and that can be translated into practical policy. The report calls for a significant increase in national investment in basic research, in order to stop erosion and align with the world. It emphasizes the need to preserve and restore international ties, not only as a diplomatic gesture but as a mechanism that enables competitive research. It points to the need to protect academic freedom and the independence of higher education institutions, especially at a time when there are political and legislative pressures that create uncertainty. It emphasizes the need to protect the future generation of researchers, through pathways and incentives that will allow young faculty and researchers to re-establish themselves, even when critical years are “swallowed” in national crises.
In the following articles, we will delve deeper into two topics that star in the report and that require a separate discussion: research infrastructures – primarily computing infrastructures in the age of artificial intelligence – and the differences between the various fields of science, in which the same general reality receives different expressions and different recommendations.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
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Have you had a chance to go over the proposed laws and those that have already been passed? This is simply their gist and result, even if it is not explicitly written in the bills.
The legal reform came to resolve a difficult dispute: the contradiction between the principle of "everything is fair" and the method of selecting judges.
If everything is judged and the Supreme Court decides to deal with political-political matters, then it serves as a player in the political arena. And if so... then political decisions represent political positions of a certain public in Israel, and from this it follows that at the very least the judge must represent a certain public (in constitutional law only). Therefore, it is impossible for the selection of judges to be made among themselves when the public has no ability to influence the selection of judges who rule for the public on political and public policy issues.
And here I will address you directly, Mr. Blizovsky, as a science enthusiast who sees the world in a binary way.
Your knowledge of political-constitutional matters is embarrassing, at the level of a vignette. "The Knesset is controlled by the government and there is an intention to abolish the judiciary."
Science is being systematically killed by the current regime. Who would have thought we would end up with a dictatorship here and in the second banana republic, the United States. Bad days.
Boycott of receiving articles from Israel
You are invited to read the article about a Tel Aviv University study, When We Want to Know and When to Hide an Embarrassing Truth
https://www.hayadan.org.il/voluntary-ignorance-when-to-know-when-to-avoid-truth
You can call it what you want, but sterilizing the judicial branch of democracy is not a reform, it is intended to abolish the separation of powers, and since the Knesset already belongs to the government, abolishing the third branch will turn Israel into a dictatorship of one branch. Not everyone has the patience I have to wait for better days and they want to take advantage of the knowledge they have acquired and live in freer places, to be precise, there are already over a hundred thousand of them. Specialist doctors have left and you have to wait in line for weeks and months for a dermatologist and years for a gastroenterologist. If you think that Israel has become better after the reform, shame on you, but that does not make the false term true.
A coup d'état in your ass.
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