Everyone agrees that the National Council for Research and Development, which the government is supposed to re-establish next week, is an essential body for the long-term planning of science in Israel. But the Ministry of Science fears that the establishment of the Council will help the Academy of Sciences to bring about the dissolution of the Ministry. Perhaps as a retaliatory action, the ministry established a committee to review the "Law of the Academy of Sciences". In this case there is a lot of intrigue, passions and insults and very few considerations of the good of science
Prof. Yaakov Ziv, president of the Academy of Sciences, refused to be interviewed, but the spokeswoman of the academy said that "the academy has operated throughout the years in full coordination with the various ministers of science"
Next week, the government is supposed to approve a proposed resolution to appoint members of a new-old body, known as the "National Research and Development Council" (MOLMO). The council, which was established for a short time after the establishment of the state and was finally disbanded in 1997, will come to new life following a law passed by the Knesset about a year and a half ago. Although the establishment of the council was supposed to be completed in November 2003 according to the law, it has not yet been established.
When you examine the reasons for the delay, you discover a jumble of competing interests. For example, MK Michael Eitan, who was one of the initiators of the law, served a short period as Minister of Science and Technology and tried with all his might to close the office at that time. The Israeli National Academy of Sciences, which has been in a bitter conflict with the Ministry of Science and its leaders for more than a decade, also did everything it could to get the law passed.
Not only the establishment of the council but also its composition is a subject of controversy. The Ministry of Science claims that since the law was passed, the President of the Academy of Sciences, Prof. Yaakov Ziv, has been delaying its implementation. According to officials in the ministry, Ziv rejects the candidates proposed by the Ministry of Science so that he can promote his own candidates, who will help him influence the conduct of the council. There are elements in the political system who reject these accusations and claim that the reason for Ziv's reservations lies in the extreme incompatibility of some of the candidates, evidence of the Ministry of Science's disdain for the renewed council.
The heads of the Ministry of Science fear that the Academy of Sciences will team up with the members of the Council and that together they will recommend to the government to abolish the Ministry of Science, arguing that they are the ones who carry out its work anyway.
Zvi Yanai, former director general of the Ministry of Science: "Apparently everything is wrapped in arguments of 'the good of science', because in the academy there are serious and respectable people, but the motives are completely different"
For this reason, the ministry initiated a series of counter-moves, aimed at stopping such a move. Among other things, he established a committee, whose task is to examine the "Law of the Academy of Sciences". The hint is clear: if the Academy insists on using the Council as a tool to challenge the Ministry of Science, the Ministry of Science will use the Committee as a tool to challenge the position of the Academy. This is how the establishment of the council, which is supposed to work on long-term plans, became a focus for short-term struggles over status, prestige and budgets - and all this, in the name of science.
Doctor or professor, that is the question
In the introduction to one of the drafts of the bill, from January 1997, the history of the council is explained. "Given the importance of scientific research and development for establishing the security and economy of the State of Israel, a scientific council was established in the early days of the state, which in the early 60s became the National Research and Development Council (NRCD). Until the end of the XNUMXs, the MoLMOP was the main body that worked to promote research and development in all sectors of the economy. It established research institutes and channeled research funds to higher education institutions, other research institutions and industry."
At the end of the 60s, there was a turning point in the government research structure, emphasizing the decentralization of responsibility for promoting research and development between the various government ministries. "The autonomy of the government ministries has increased and the council has no tools left for planning and determining an overall policy," reads the introduction to the bill. First, the MOLMP operated in the Prime Minister's Office, then it was transferred to the Ministry of Energy, and when the Ministry of Science was established in 1982, it was transferred to it. Since the new ministry received all the actual executive powers, and in the absence of a law defining the council's powers, its activity went on and on, until it practically ceased to exist. At the end of 1994, the government re-established the council, which began operating in September 1995 under the leadership of Prof. Yitzhak Farnes. In May 1996, the effort to re-establish the council began, as an independent body that does not stand in the shadow of the Ministry of Science. In September 1997 Farnes announced his resignation, claiming that the council was under political pressure from the Ministry of Science, and the council disbanded.
After years of discussions, the Knesset passed the Law of the MoLMOP, which stipulates that the council must be re-established as a statutory body by November 2003. Despite this, the council has not yet been established. According to MK Eitan, the reason for this lies in the reluctance of the Ministry of Science to establish the council for fear that it would threaten its existence. "In the beginning he (the current Minister of Science, Eliezer (Modi) Zandberg, XNUMX) did not feel like establishing the council because the ministry steered him against this idea. It took him a while to get over his officials and I'm not sure he didn't tell them 'don't worry, I'll rule the council'. This is the worst thing that can happen," claims Eitan. The Ministry of Science strongly rejected this claim.
The law states that "the Council for Civil Research and Development will advise the government in formulating a policy for the utilization of the civilian scientific and technological pool of the State of Israel and its development". The council will appoint 15 members who will be officially appointed by the president of the country, but the person who actually makes up the council according to the law is the minister of science. The law stipulates that a scientist with a reputation for managing research and development systems, who is not a civil servant, will be the chairman of the council. Alongside him will be a member of the National Academy of Sciences, four scientists from research institutions, four industrialists, four scientists specializing in policy and setting priorities, and an economist. A scientist from the defense establishment will sit in the council as an observer.
The president of the Academy of Sciences, Prof. Yaakov Ziv, asked to appoint Prof. Amnon Pazi, a professor at the Hebrew University and who was the head of the University Planning and Budgeting Committee, as the chairman of the council. To this end Ziv, Fazi and Zandberg held a meeting, shortly after which Zandberg announced that he was rejecting Ziv's request. Sources close to Fazi claim that "for some reason the Minister of Science decided that Fazi wanted to close the Ministry of Science and therefore rejected his candidacy".
In the end, Zandberg decided to appoint Prof. Dan Zaslavsky as chairman, who held the position of Water Commissioner during the time when Raphael Eitan was the Minister of Agriculture (Zandberg, now a member of "Shinoi", was formerly a member of the "Junk" party, which Eitan founded, XNUMX ). The law states that the appointment of the chairman of the council is made only on the opinion of the Minister of Science, while the appointment of the research staff in the council is made by him only after consultation with the Academy of Sciences. Sources involved in the nomination process say that some of Zandberg's candidates were rejected by the academy because he sought to appoint inexperienced people. In contrast, others claim that Zandberg refused to act out of respect and decided to appoint people in a matter-of-fact manner, even if they carry the title "Doctor" and not "Professor". The Minister of Education, Limor Livnat, also had objections to the structure of the council, claiming that there is no adequate representation of women.
Correspondence is difficult
The fight between the Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Science did not start over the appointment of the members to the council and there is a fear that the new council will only exacerbate relations. Amazingly, no one remembers what the original cause of the ongoing conflict was. "It is not clear who started this conflict, but there is a conflict between the Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Science. This is a fact," says Prof. Frans.
You can learn about these relationships from events that took place during Zvi Yanai's tenure as CEO of the ministry. Yanai was appointed to the position when Shulamit Aloni served as Minister of Culture and Science in the Rabin government in the 90s. He says that shortly after taking office, the president of the Academy at the time, Prof. Yehoshua Yortner, sent a letter to the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in which he reminded him of the position of the Academy of Sciences in matters of science and technology. According to Yanai, Yurtner knew that Rabin was aware that the role of the Academy of Sciences is, among other things, to advise the government on science policy issues. In his estimation, the purpose of the letter was to try and penetrate the fields of activity of the Ministry of Science and Technology. Yanai asked Minister Aloni to write a response letter to Rabin and put the academy in its place. Aloni did it.
"The Academy of Sciences does not want the Ministry of Science because it is not interested in a body that will come between it and the government," explains Yanai. "The academy has always wanted to have two bodies independent of the government that would deal with science: itself and the Research and Development Council." From documents that reached Haaretz, it appears that the tension between the bodies broke records on April 3, 1995. At that time, Yurtner sent several strong letters, in which he protested the behavior of the Ministry of Science.
For example, Yurtner sent Aloni a letter, with a copy to the Prime Minister, in which he expressed his anger that they did not consult the Academy of Sciences before re-establishing the MoLMOP. It seems that Urtner feared that the council established by virtue of a government decision would be eroded by the status of the national academy. For this reason, on the same day, he also sent a letter to the Attorney General, in which he demanded an investigation regarding "the alleged contradiction between the law of the Israel National Academy of Sciences and the duties of the council."
In another letter, also to Aloni, Yurtner claimed that the appointment of a chief scientist in the Ministry of Science contradicts the duties of the Ministry. "I don't remember the appointment of a chief scientist announced by the director general of the ministry... also on this issue your ministry is being reformed and not for the better," he wrote. In another letter, Yurtner wrote to her that he was "surprised" to receive Yanai's letter, in which he announced that he was "happy" about the increase of the binational fund with England. "The position of the National Academy is that no new bi-national foundations should be established," he ruled. The Minister of Science responded to the letters and wrote that she found them "extremely puzzling".
Prof. Yurtner refused to comment on the friction that exists between the Ministry of Science and the Academy of Sciences, but hinted at its roots. "Do you know what the relationship is between the US president's science advisor and the US science minister? The answer is that there is no relationship because there is no science office in the US. There is only a consultant. The structure of Israeli research and development is very similar to the American one, and there is probably a reason why the US decided to be satisfied with an independent scientific consultant and not a government office."
Yortner's successor at the Academy of Sciences, Prof. Ziv, who at the time served as the head of the life sciences division at the academy, did not hide his distaste for the Ministry of Science and its director general Yanai, after the latter responded to Ziv's letter, in which he proposed principles of action for the 13th Committee (Committee who established the Ministry of Science, where representatives of the higher education institutions sat and discussed science policy issues, XNUMX). Yanai then claimed that Ziv was challenging the existing principles and threatened to dissolve the committee if his view was not adopted. Yurtner wrote in response that he read Yanai's letter "with astonishment".
Later Ziv announced that he was resigning from his position as a member of the 13th Committee and asked to appoint Dr. Meir Zadok, who currently serves as the CEO of the Academy of Sciences, in his place. "It was clear that they wanted to lower their level of representation in the committee," explains a source who was close to the ministry in those days. The Minister of Science informed Ziv that she was not ready to appoint Zadok on the grounds that the Academy should send a senior representative to the important committee. An exchange of letters began between the parties, until finally Aloni surrendered.
"They almost got beaten up"
Prof. Frans, who at the beginning of his career as chairman of the council did not attach importance to its existence as a statutory body, today explains the importance of the law. "Since science ministers change frequently, and since there is concern that pressure will be applied to a council established by virtue of a decision by the Minister of Science, it is important that it be established by law. On the other hand, it does not have to compete with any government office; It should not have an executive budget, but only a budget for current activities."
MK Eitan claims that behind Farnes' careful wording lies a history of struggles between the Ministry of Science and the Council, over the question of how independent the Council should be. "There were almost beatings," he says. "The Ministry of Science pressured the council to make decisions. It was unbearable." According to him, even now, when a new council is established, it does not start its steps on the right foot because of a failure in the law, according to which the authority of appointment rests with the Minister of Science. "From the moment the Minister of Science appoints her people, it's a problem," claims Eitan.
The Ministry of Science cancels these claims. They claim that Eitan's attempt to close the Ministry of Science was tainted with superficiality and a lack of understanding. Senior officials in the ministry mention that the council, which may act against the interests of the Ministry of Science, can turn its sting towards other parties as well. "In the zeal of the heads of the Academy of Sciences to swallow up the Ministry of Science, they did not notice that the council can also take over areas that are currently handled by the Academy and even check the functioning of the Academy of Sciences," said an official at the Ministry of Science.
To ensure peace on the front of the Academy of Sciences, Zandberg established a committee with three members, whose job it is to examine the Law of the Academy of Sciences, which entered into force in 1961. Since its appointment, at the end of 2003, the committee has not met and it seems that the Minister of Science does not pressure the members to submit conclusions, for fear of being seen as someone who is persecuting the members of the Academy of Sciences.
Farnes hints that he is not sure that there will be any benefit from the council's offices being located in the building of the Academy of Sciences in Jerusalem, as it is currently planned. "The council should be completely independent," he says. When he was asked why, as a senior and respected neuroscientist, he is not a member of the Academy of Sciences, he replied that "I'm probably not a good enough scientist."
Yanai, who has had many clashes with the Academy of Sciences, partly around the question of the status of the council, claims that the source of the struggles is the Academy of Sciences' desire to protect its status and prestige. "On the surface these are apparently technical arguments; Yes Statutory Council or no. But beneath the surface the passions flow. Apparently, everything is wrapped in arguments of the 'good of science', because in the academy there are serious and respectable people, but the motives are completely different."
However, sources close to MK Matan Vilnai, during his time as Minister of Education, Science and Sports, the law was prepared, claim that no blame should be pointed at the academy. Vilnai sent three letters to Zandberg in which he demanded that the establishment of the council be speeded up. Zandberg did not remain liable and a "battle of letters" developed between the two, on which Justice Minister Tommy Lapid and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon are also written. According to those close to Vilnai, Zandberg tried to stop the establishment of the council and then appointed people unsuitable for the position in an attempt to neuter it. It is precisely the Academy of Sciences, the insiders claim, that operates with clean hands.
The president of the academy, Prof. Ziv, refused to be interviewed for the article, to comment on the claims made in it or to explain his position on the matter. The spokeswoman for the Academy of Sciences stated that "the purpose of the MOLMP law is to strengthen scientific research and development in Israel through professional advice to the government." To this end, the Academy will work together with the Ministry of Science and other government ministries. Throughout the years, the Academy worked in full coordination with the various Ministers of Science and the final bill was worked out and formulated in full agreement with the Chief Scientist and the Legal Advisor of the Ministry of Science. From the importance it sees in the establishment of the council, the academy acted from the day the law was passed by the Knesset, without delay, to assist in everything required of it according to the law and did resolutely to promote its implementation and operation, including advice on the assembly of the council."
By: Yuval Dror
