So said Prof. Hagit Maser-Yeron, UN Vice President. Tel Aviv for R&D at the meeting of the scientific-technological forum shared by Italy and Israel
"Higher education institutions in Israel are facing serious risks following the severe budget cuts that have been their lot in recent years. One of the dangers is that the pressure to raise additional resources will harm the public interest in everything related to the commercialization of technologies, while exposing intellectual property to market forces and capital sharks." This is what Prof. Hagit Maser-Yeron, vice president of Tel Aviv University for Research and Development and who heads the forum of vice presidents for research and development of universities in Israel, warned.
Prof. Messer-Yeron spoke as part of a gathering of the scientific-technological forum shared by Italy and Israel that is currently taking place in Tel Aviv with the participation of over 30 senior scientists from Italy. The gathering is intended to discuss the strengthening of industry, science and technology ties between the two countries as a gesture by the Italian government on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the country.
Prof. Messer-Yeron emphasized that the policy of higher education institutions until today has been to maintain a responsible technology transfer policy, with checks and balances, while safeguarding the public interest. According to her, this policy is reflected in the preservation of the intellectual property of the universities and not selling patents, but only granting licenses in certain fields (closed license transactions) and while maintaining academic freedom, including the ability of researchers to publish articles in the fields of innovation developed by them. This policy, stated Prof. Messer-Yeron, was a double success - it enabled the successful and efficient commercialization of technologies, through the application companies of the universities, while maintaining academic and scientific excellence. This is how the public interest is preserved in the development of the innovation created in the academy.
Maser-Yeron stated that today, in view of the increasing budget problems in the academy, there is a real fear of increased pressures to raise additional resources and as a result of capital sharks taking over the intellectual property created in universities through public money. In this situation, it will not be possible to ensure the public interest in the development of intellectual property for the common good and it will be exposed to the regulation of the market. "I do not believe in the regulation of market forces, but the universities are hungry for budgets and this situation will make it difficult to maintain the rules of ethics in the preservation of intellectual property within the walls of the academy and its development for the public benefit," said Prof. Yaron.
From Maser-Yeron even denied over-involvement of the state in setting the rules for the commercialization of technologies, but stated that the solution may be for the state to establish only guidelines. According to her, until today the universities enjoyed almost complete independence in the processes of commercializing the technologies. Policy writing by the government is not desirable, but in the new situation there may be no escape from the state's involvement, but this should only be done at the macro level.
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Lior, seriously!
If the amounts were stated - what would you know to do?
You would have directly asked for detailed information on how they were distributed and what they were used for as well as how exactly they plan to use the budgets in the future.
Then, if you received the information, you would ask them to explain to you why each thing is necessary (and maybe even some of the things are).
Since the vast majority of readers here cannot make any use of the data that Hagit or the site denounces for not being there, I actually praise them for omitting it.
I repeat - I know many of the people working at Tel Aviv University (including Hagit) and most of them are very good and serious people.
I remember an event, quite a few years ago, where about ten professors from Tel Aviv University gathered together with Avigdor Kahalani, who was a minister at the time, and where I was asked to participate in order to demonstrate to Kahalani the difference between the employment conditions of the workers in academia and those who preferred the industrial sector. It should be noted that at that time I was still working as an employee and my salary did not even come close to what I started to earn later - as a freelancer, but my employment conditions were still much better than those of my classmates who remained in the academy.
This is partially true.
The university has a lot of money.
Lots.
As an engineering student from Tel Aviv University, and a former student of the lady's bachelor's degree, I can say:
1. Whoever thinks he can do whatever he wants in the name of academic freedom, and an institution that allows him to do so, should not be surprised that this is the case. In the Faculty of Engineering in Tel Aviv, there are supervisors who are overbearing at the expense of the young researchers (graduate students), and this directly causes the waste of the most essential resource for the university. Humans. I don't want to think about what goes on in research departments where people don't have very magical options in the private market. There are lecturers in engineering who teach asterns for 4 years and doctoral students for 10 years!!! And it's not just one, it's all the students of those mentors, except those who didn't run away!!!. This means shockingly failed management and no one is compensating here
Whoever lets such a bradak run around, will not expect to be taken seriously
2. Those who strike for their personal salary, and not for research budgets, should not be surprised that they have no research budgets.
3. The situation is not so bad in the Technion and Be'er Sheva. It should be noted that the treatment of people there is much better than in Tel Aviv.
4. How much money was there before and after? Why doesn't she say what the amounts are?
Hagit, you know, they say. Last year we got X and Esau we only got 80% of that. If a student submitted a test like this, you would fail him. If she did say sums and the scientists didn't publish them: shame on you and sorry to Hagit.
Ami:
I agree with your words, but the money issue cannot be ignored.
I know that when Zvi Galil returned to Israel to head Tel Aviv University, he had to give up a salary that is about three times what he receives here. This was the salary he received as a lecturer and researcher in the USA, and this salary meant that most of his research was carried out there. He came here partly because being the president of the university is a prestigious enough position to give up the money, but it should be remembered that in doing so he almost gave up the research as well (his position does not leave He has enough time for that, although he still tries to do something.) Many of my friends are Israeli professors at universities in the US and France. They are all part of the human capital that we lost because of the money (there are not enough standards, there are not high enough salaries, there is no money to operate laboratories and more).
I personally turned to a career in high tech because I knew that as a university lecturer it is difficult to make a living (that is, it is difficult to make an honest living and this is the source of the phenomenon you described in which some of the research products end up in private hands. University researchers are simply looking to supplement their income)
I agree with the commenters above me. Private control of capitalists over an academic body is a scientific disaster that harms public welfare. I also agree with the fact that in recent years we hear the universities repeatedly complaining about a decrease in funding (whether this is true or not, I do not know - I am fed by media that is fed by vested interests).
With the exception of private universities, as far as I understand the universities are an institution that belongs to the state. The state budgets them in addition to the donors and tuition fees from the students. In each of the three cases, the goal is public. Donors, government or the student body are the total funders and therefore the academic product should be public (indeed academic progress is often publicized and allows for the continuation of the building of the discipline).
The problem begins when, in any way, which I cannot point to due to the complexity of life, the efficiency of the product is impaired, due to a lack of cash or due to the incorrect transfer of rights to private hands. The middle way, in my opinion, is one in which the public - the entire public that supports science, including the tax payer - will benefit as much as possible and optimally, as a function of time, from scientific innovation.
In other words, it should be done in such a way that the public will really be the one to benefit. Neither private hands nor specific laboratories that feed on oils of an invention registered and anchored in the oil law.
I didn't want to get into this discussion but I was dragged into it. The problem is that I don't have any data, like most of the public. There are rumors from the media that the academy is suffering major cuts. It may be true and even likely so. Fortunately, I did not encounter this personally, as a laboratory worker and as a university standard holder.
Look at the universities in Korea or Saudi Arabia... swimming in money that is stored in Panamanian rooms due to lack of space. Blown up with the newest equipment that exists (mostly still inside the nylons). Science is also a function of money, but it is mainly, in my opinion, a function of human capital, giving freedom of thought and action finally a function of necessity. It is necessary. There is human capital. At a certain level there is financial freedom. The main problems of science, in my opinion, is the freedom of thought and action.
Shabbat Shalom
P. Bachar
Ami:
If I understood your intention then you did not understand Hagit's intention.
She warns of a situation where the universities will not have enough money, which will cause capitalists to take control of the inventions they make for their own benefit, contrary to the attempt that the universities are making today, to make the inventions serve the general public.
The middle path is the path taken today whereby parties with an economic interest can register patents and make it their own without the public good being neglected because eventually the patent will expire and the knowledge will pass to the public, while the knowledge developed in institutions funded by the public will serve the public.
If you take into account the fact that academic research also serves the public, the whole picture becomes clearer.
By the way, it should be understood that if the capitalists take over the universities, they will have the full moral right to use the inventions as they see fit, and the public will have no recourse here, because unlike the situation where the public finances (through government support) the research activity - something that also does to a partner in the ownership of the knowledge - In the new situation, the capitalists will be the legitimate owners of the knowledge.
Ami,
I very much agree with your comment on the subject, but the real problem is that very little money goes to the universities, and this amount also decreases from year to year - that is why we are witnessing a certain deterioration in the universities in Israel in recent years, a lot of good research has no funding and therefore a lot of talented scientists leave abroad Because there is no one in Israel who will invest in their research and money and other countries, especially the USA, gladly accept these scientists to universities that can finance these studies.
Open source proves itself.
Academy 2.0
The things in the article may be partly true, but there is also another side to the coin. The speaker represents a purely academic interest and not the "public good" as stated.
Imagine, borrowing from the software world, that Microsoft, developing its user-friendly operating system, releases the code and allows surfers to develop it and take it in one direction or another.
So it's true, software sharks and businessmen will also know how to make money from it, but in the end there will be a combination of brain power (the company's engineers) and numerical power (private developers). And the big beneficiaries will be the public.
It seems to me that the middle way is the right one, while in this writing we see only one side and with it there is a certain justice.
Greetings friends,
Ami Bachar
I wonder when they will wake up in Israel?
Maybe after all the scientists in Israel move to the USA and Europe.