Britain-Israel All-Party Parliamentary Group Report
A new study conducted by the Britain-Israel All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) has reviewed the “extensive collaboration” between British and Israeli researchers and highlighted areas for additional cooperation.
The report, titled “Accelerating UK-Israel Research Collaboration: A Springboard for Scholarship”, outlines the ways in which Israel and the UK already work together as well as providing an “innovative model to accelerate cooperation”.
APPG Chair and CFI Officer Bob Blackman MP said that “Israel and the UK are two of the world’s most innovative nations and with leadership from both countries, we can push the boundaries of discovery together”.
In a message published in the report, H.E. Neil Wigan OBE, the British Ambassador to Israel, explains that the “UK and Israel boast strong research and academic ties”. The UK is Israel’s third-largest collaborator for academic publications and is the second largest in the medical field as underpinned by the Britain Israel Research and Academic Exchange Partnership (BIRAX) framework. Collaborative research is “three times more likely to be cited than unilateral research by either country” as UK-Israel co-authored publications have a citation impact of 4.36 compared to Israeli-only at 1.46 and British-only at 1.56.
The report documents a number of organisations and programmes that already enable Israel-UK collaboration. For example, Innovate UK who has “supported a number of UK-Israel research partnership funds through Funding for International Collaboration” as well as the UK-Israel Science Council, administered by the British Embassy, which is a body of 23 leading scientists from the UK and Israel whose core mandate is to improve science collaboration between the two countries.
The UK has developed the Turing Scheme to support British students who wish to study abroad, since its creation 94 British students have chosen to study in Israel, compared to 18 under the previous Erasmus+ programme. Another organisation is the Wolfson Family Charitable Trust, which was set up in 1958 and allocates about £2.5 million each year to provide support in Israel for outstanding research from universities and hospitals.
The report outlines three recommendations to increase the quality and frequency of research cooperation between the two nations. Firstly, creating the ‘Britain-Israel Research and Innovation Framework’, a permanently funded, multidisciplinary bilateral funding mechanism to provide “stable funding stream for British and Israeli researchers at all career stages, offer agile calls for emerging challenges and research streams, as well as enhance scholar mobility between both countries”.
Secondly, establishing the ‘Get the Spark’ programme, which will send British undergraduate students to spend a term at one of Israel’s university-affiliated tech hubs, and it “will be aimed at stimulating the creation of joint British-Israeli ventures where early-stage entrepreneurs can explore common market opportunities and aligned technology”. Students will be taught entrepreneurship, get to witness early-stage start-ups and receive mentorship from Israeli entrepreneurs.
Thirdly, launching a joint ‘Britain-Israel Forum for Research and Innovation Policy’ to enable a regular dialogue “on research and innovation policy in higher education where policy best practices from government and universities are shared, with the inclusion of non-governmental policy expertise”. It will address and aid the common and emerging challenges facing university research and innovation in both countries.
In a message published in the report, Israeli Ambassador to the UK, H.E. Tzipi Hotovely, states that “the UK-Israel partnership is especially strong… British-Israeli research collaboration has blossomed in recent decades… Whilst there is much to celebrate with regard to UK-Israel research collaboration, there is much more we can do to accelerate the extraordinary pent-up potential”.
