The Israeli government passed a $ 350 million plan to attract new scientific working abroad, Israeli media reported yesterday. According to Haaretz , the system will create 30 academic centers of excellence to attract scientists currently working abroad. The government will provide a third of the money; the rest must come from the academic and philanthropic institutions. The universities will compete to host the centers.
said the document:
A pilot program of five Centres of Excellence will begin during the next academic year. Sources close to the Higher Education Council stated that the first centers to open would focus on the economy and IT, two areas in which Israeli scientists have made particularly important contributions to research international.
"There is certainly a step in the right direction," Eytan Abraham, an Israeli researcher at the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Biomedical Engineering Center, said Science insider. Abraham is the representative of MIT BioAbroad, a group that seeks to facilitate the return of biomedical scientists, entrepreneurs and doctors in Israel, for example, by putting them in contact with companies there and travel funding for interviews job.
Many Israeli scientist expatriates want to go back, said Abraham; ie, more than 100 showed to Boston for a meeting on January 2 on the subject with the Israeli Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz. The small number of scientists available positions in Israeli universities is a major obstacle, Abraham said. But he warns that it remains to be seen whether academic institutions and private donors will come through their share of the money. He also noted that the program is only for academic positions; a similar initiative should be to open up jobs in Israel's industry, said Abraham.
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