Israel's Technology Sector

This study provides a general assessment of the science and technology ST and research and development RD landscape in Israel, one of the worlds most prolific innovators in advanced technologies, particularly information and communication technology ICT. Israel is widely seen as Silicon Valley-like, and perhaps second only to Silicon Valley as an exemplification of the phenomenon of a start-up intensive, entrepreneurship-led high-tech cluster. The report is organized in four major sections. The first, an introductory section, summarizes the factors that account for the takeoff of the Israeli high-tech cluster in the early 1990s and for its continued flourishing. The second section presents the key indicators of Israels strengths as an RD-based innovating economy, including input indicators, such as RD expenditures and human capital, and output indicators, including patents, publications, the number of high-tech start-ups, and the contribution of high-tech products and high-tech exports to the overall Israeli economy. The third section focuses on government policy decisions and actions that have played a crucial role in Israels emergence and current standing as a high-tech powerhouse. The fourth section discusses Israels achievements and trends in the countrys key technology sectors and emerging sectors information and communication technologies biotechnology nanotechnology cleantech or environmental technologies military technologies aerospace and unconventional weapons. The report concludes that the Israeli high-tech cluster is thriving, despite the global implosion of ICT in the early twenty-first century, and notwithstanding Israels persistent security problems. Israels high-tech cluster seems to be resilient, in part because of the benefits that the presence of other firms, by definition, bestows on the individual firms within the cluster.