Israel ranks fourth in the world in scientific activity, study finds
Israel's role in global scientific activity is 10 times larger than its percentage of the world's population.
By Ofri Ilani Tags: Israel newsIsrael ranks fourth in the world in scientific activity, according to data compiled for by the Council of Higher Education.
The data, which dates to 2005, puts Israel behind Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark in terms of the number of scientific publications per million citizens.
The report was released at a conference at Bar-Ilan University yesterday.
In 2005, Israeli scientists published 6,309 essays in foreign scientific journals. Following Israel were Finland, the Netherlands and Canada. The United States placed 12th, and Germany, 15th.
Of all the scientific articles published in 2005, 0.89 percent were by Israeli scientists. In 1997, 1.03 percent of all scientific articles in the world were by Israelis.
Israel's role in global scientific activity is almost 10 times larger than its percentage of the world's population.
Even more significant is the number of times the articles were cited by other scientists.
One of the most productive and cited scientist is Professor Avram Hershko of the Technion, Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry in 2004, according to the report. Hershko published 148 articles and was cited more than 16,000 times.
Dr. Meir Zadok, director of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, said Israel's scientific success is due to the strict criteria by which scientists are judged here.
"Competition for positions is growing in Israel, and the promotion processes are very rigorous, so people publish a lot to get ahead," he says. "In addition, there are very strong traditions of quality in Israeli academe."
The Council for Higher Education's Planning and Budgeting Committee yesterday warned that new research centers around the world are threatening Israeli universities' status.
The reason for the relative decrease in Israel's scientific activity is the fast growth of research centers in developing countries, especially China and India, while the number of scientists at Israeli universities is dwindling, officials on the committee said.
"Israelis have written about 1 percent of the scientific articles in the world, and that is very respectable," says Professor Yehudit Bar-Ilan, head of the Department of Information Science, Bar-Ilan University, who headed the conference.
"The decrease in public funding for research will lead to a reduction [in scientific activity] in the coming years," she added.
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The US needs weapons. The US was attacked on 9/11. How does the US fight, with out weapons? Israelis have the brains and the know how to fix American weapons. The do not ask the Egyptians for that, who also get US weapons. They have yet to ask any arab countries for help? Did you even wonder why? US tax payers get off easy when they use smart Israeli brains to fix their problems with their weapons. The US wants Israel to by American weapons that is why the US always tried to stop Israel from making their own MAJOR weapons. Remember the best fighting plan in the World was the Lavi fighter. The US asked Israel not to build it. Go figure. It was not good for the US economy for Israel to build it and maybe sell it. Deal with reality baby, Deal with reality.
This is another of those meaningless statistics out of Israel. Such statistics provide no details. Of the billions of dollars provided by America to Israel for so many years, one billion per year is earmarked for research and development in Israel, primarily in the weapons catagory. This American tax payer money is a major part of the foundation of Israels weapons industry. Now Israel would call it sciance as well.
Go Israel.! 61 years young!
... combined (last year). Furthermore, Israel has more start-ups per head than any other country (a total of 3,850). More companies are listed on the NASDAQ than China and India combined. The above from "The Economist". Now about Nobel prizes: - Chemistry By Israelis - Twice, 2009, 2004 Jews in general - 29 times - Physics Jews in general - 44 times - Biomedical Jews in general - 49 times - Economics By Israelis - Twice 2005, 2002 Jews in general - 24 times
My young Jewish friends here in the US are in medicine, computers, mathematics, anything that requires an IQ much bigger than one's shoe size. And they teach their kids early on to love reading and learning. Jews - still 'people of the book' after three millenia. Good on them! MV