Israel

The development of nanotechnology in Israel has a similar timeline to the development of nanotechnology in other industrialized nations. However, for a nation of such limited population (7.4 million in 2009) and size (8,000 mi2), Israel is a disproportionally productive player in several key nanotechnology research fields. Nanotechnology in Israel is characterized by highly managed cooperation between the government, universities, and private industry (including finance) and has been focused as much on applications and commercialization as on fundamental research. As in a number of other nations, nanotechnology has been seen as way to leverage, reorient, and reorganize research function around multidisciplinary shared facilities. As a small nation, Israel has been more successful than many at creating these synergies.

In the late 20th century, Israel emerged as a strong competitor in the high-tech industries, particularly information and communication technology (ICT), defense and security, and biotechnology. Israel's focus on and support for nanotechnology in the 21st century is a natural development from that earlier success. The reasons for Israel's successful high-tech sector include its highly developed research culture and institutions, its well-organized and globalized venture capital (VC) sector, one of the most highly educated workforces in the world with a greater percentage of scientific workers than almost any other nation, a long tradition of powerful and highly integrated science and technology policy and technology assessment in the Israeli government, and tight cultural and institutional connections [Page 370]to Europe and the United States. All of these elements have shaped the Israeli nanotechnology enterprise.

Although there was nanotechnology research before 2001, as in Europe and the United States, the early years of the 21st century mark a break with the past through a highly coordinated state effort to organize and support a new research field in nanoscience and technologies. Like Europe and the United States, Israel's science and technology policy community seized on nanotechnology as the successor to bio- and information technology, building on and extending the ideas that had brought these two industries to the forefront of the economy in the previous generation.

However, Israel's focus on high technology industries has been more focused and concentrated than in other nations, because of the small size of the country and the lack of natural resources. Israel's economy is much more dependent on high technology than many others, and the connection between technological development and economic performance has been managed and safeguarded by one of the oldest technology assessment institutions in the world.

The Interdisciplinary Center for Technology Analysis and Forecasting (ICTAF) at Tel Aviv University was created in 1971 as a think tank to bring reflexivity and long-range planning to ensure Israel's national innovation systems. The ICTAF was an early proponent of a coherent nanotechnology strategy that would steer nanotechnology toward areas where Israel had the best chances for global success and impact. ICTAF also advocated using nanotechnology to improve Israel's scientific infrastructure, while also leveraging that investment to move toward highly inter- and multidisciplinary research areas. This policy effort to incentivize interdisciplinarity is also seen in a number of the east Asian nanotechnology strategies.

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