DRAFT 2 – 01.06.10
16 - 17 May 2010
Introduction
The Fact-finding Task Force 1 visited Israel on 16 and 17 May 2010.
During these two days, the Task Force visited the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Technion (Israel’s
Institute of Technology) and Tel Aviv University. The SARAF accelerator at the SOREQ Nuclear Center was also visited, as well as several high-tech industrial firms.
The Task Force had a meeting with the President of the State of Israel,
Mr. S. Peres. The Task Force further had a discussion with the Minister of
Science and Technology, Prof. D. Hershkovitz.
The programme of the visit is reproduced in Annex 1.
Background
Based on its assessment that the competitive advantage of Israel is in its human capital, the Government of the State of Israel makes every effort to stimulate the development of science-based industry
Israeli science has its roots in Europe, in particular in Germany. Based on an
Association Agreement between the State of Israel and the European
Communities (1995), Israel participates in many programmes funded by the
European Union, notably Framework Programmes 4 to 7. Israel is also a member of the EMBL and a Scientific Associate of the ESRF.
Israeli experimental work in HEP has concentrated on European laboratories, in particular CERN and DESY. It is therefore natural for Israel to seek a close relation with CERN. It is in this context that Israel has signed a number of cooperation agreements with CERN since 1990, becoming in 1991 the first
Observer State in the CERN Council to make an annual contribution to the
Organization’s budget. As a logical conclusion to this process, Israel submitted a formal application for CERN membership on <date> .
General Information
Population
The State of Israel has a population of 7.4 million. The level of education is high: at present the fraction of the population with tertiary education is 24% and about half of the present generation of students goes on to tertiary education.
Economy
1 Dr. S.Bertolucci (Chair), Prof. E. Gazis, Dr. M. Johnsson, Prof. T. Nakada, Prof. C. Pajares and
Prof. G. Vesztergombi. The Task Force was accompanied by Dr. J. de Groot (secretary) and
Dr. J. Ellis (CERN contact for Israel)
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The driving force of the Israeli economy is technology, with high-tech industry accounting for more than 46% of industrial exports. The GDP per capita is 29,300 USD (PPP), comparable to some of the smaller CERN Member
States. Civilian R&D is 4.8% of GDP, the highest in the world.
Education
There are seven universities in Israel, and also an Open University. All basic research in Israel is carried out at the universities, where high-level basic research is a major activity.
In addition to the universities there are 54 colleges, and the total student population exceeds 250,000.
Education expenditures amount to xx % of GDP.
History of Relations between CERN and Israel
The first Agreement between the Government of Israel and CERN dates from
1990. It specified an annual contribution by Israel to CERN corresponding to
20% of what would be its contribution as a CERN Member State. Of this contribution 30% was paid in cash and 70% in kind through Israeli firms participating in CERN tenders. A Protocol to this Agreement was signed in
1991 and renewed several times since. Following the Agreement, Israel became an Observer State in 1991.
This initial Agreement has subsequently been renewed and extended on several occasions. In October 2004 an additional Protocol was signed increasing the Israeli contribution by 50% for two years. The additional contribution was intended to support the GRID project by covering 50% of the cost of related products purchased in Israel.
A new five-year agreement was signed in 2006, with its corresponding
Protocol, setting the Israeli contribution at 25% of what would be its contribution as a CERN Member State, 27% in cash and 73% in kind by Israeli firms participating in CERN tenders. The Agreement is financed by the
Ministries of Science and Technology (15%) and Industry and Trade (85%).
In 2009, Israel was accepted as a special Observer State, with the right to attend restricted Council sessions for discussions of LHC matters.
It is noted that in the 2000 renewal of the General Agreement between CERN and the Government of Israel it is stated that:
“Both Parties agree that the next step to increase their collaboration is the application of Israel to become a Member State of CERN. The CERN Management will support these efforts and, in the event of an application, shall submit it to the CERN Council for decision.”
Institutes
Of particular relevance to the CERN membership of Israel are the following institutes:
 The Weizmann Institute of Science is a leading multi-disciplinary research centre and university for postgraduate education. The institute carries out both theoretical and experimental research in particle physics, the latter
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DRAFT 2 – 01.06.10 mainly in ATLAS. In the Radiation Detection Physics Laboratory, the
Weizmann Institute has specialized detector physics group.
 The Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology, has an experimental particle physics group working in ATLAS and a theory group working mainly on particle phenomenology.
 Tel Aviv University is the largest, in terms of students, of the six research universities. The Physics department has particle physics theory and experimental groups plus staff and infrastructure for detector R&D and construction. The main experimental effort is now in ATLAS, and there is detector development is aimed at future accelerators (SLHC, ILC).
 The Hebrew University has a particle physics theory group. There is no experimental group.
All universities have a strong link with the global scientific community, in particular through postdocs and regular sabbatical leaves.
Present Contacts with CERN
Theoretical particle physics research takes place at almost all of the research universities: the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva, Hebrew
University in Jerusalem, the Technion in Haifa, Tel Aviv University and the
Weizmann Institute in Rehovot. The community consists of about 40 faculty,
18 postdocs and 45 PhD students. The theory groups at the Hebrew
University, Tel Aviv and Weizmann are combined in one of about a dozen centres of excellence funded by the Israel Science Foundation.
The experimental particle physics community is about half the size of the theory community. The main activity in experimental particle physics is in
ATLAS with a team of 15 scientists, 3 postdocs, 16 PhD students and 10 MSc students. As was the case previously for OPAL at LEP, the three main experimental groups (Tel Aviv, Technion and Weizmann) joined forces to make a visible and high-quality contribution to one experiment and one subsystem. The contribution to ATLAS consists of the construction of 66% of the Endcap Muon Trigger chambers as well as its alignment, data acquisition and monitoring systems.
In addition to its main effort in ATLAS, Israeli teams participate in COMPASS
(Tel Aviv), ALPHA (Beer Sheva), OPERA (Technion) and ISOLDE
(Weizmann). A Weizmann group that participated previously in the CERES experiment at CERN and then the PHENIX experiment at BNL has now joined ATLAS to continue its studies of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The detector development group at the Weizmann Institute participates in the
RD51 Collaboration developing micropattern gas detectors.
A WLCG Israel - ATLAS Tier-2 GRID centre, based on a distributed architecture involving three institutions (Tel Aviv, Technion and Weizmann), is operational with, at present, 912 processor cores and 500 TBytes of storage.
Industrial relations between Israel and CERN have been beneficial for both parties. The Agreements and Protocols signed between Israel and CERN
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DRAFT 2 – 01.06.10 provided for in kind contributions from Israeli industry to CERN. As a result, many high-tech in kind contributions from Israel to the CERN experimental programme have been made: orders of over 15 MCHF have been placed in
Israel, partly funded by Israel (84%) and by the experiments.
Funding of CERN-related Activities
Israeli universities are autonomous, with most of their funding coming from the government, supplemented by private donations.
The principal funding agency is the Israel Science Foundation, whose mission is to support basic research through competitive grants in science and technology, life sciences and medicine, and also in humanities and social science. The present budget is 79 MUSD per annum provided essentially by the government but partly also from donations.
Over the period 1995 – 2009 and through the different programmes of support, sums totalling 23.4 MUSD have been provided to fund the Israeli participation in ATLAS. This included annual amounts of 600 kUSD granted during the construction period (1998 – 2006) and 40 kUSD since then. In addition, Centres of Excellence at the Hebrew University and the Weizmann
Institute were funded at the level of 7.6 MUSD, and a total of 9.6 MCHF was provided in the form of 62 grants to individual researchers.
At present the exploitation budget of the ATLAS team amounts to about
1 MCHF per annum, including 620 kCH per annum for the Tier-2 centre, but excluding ATLAS Maintenance and Operations contributions, which are made separately.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The Task Force is pleased to note:
 The coordinated effort made by the teams of the Weizmann Institute, the
Technion and Tel Aviv University in ATLAS which, together with participations in some smaller experiments at CERN and elsewhere, constitute a well-structured programme in experimental particle physics.
 The important theoretical particle physics community in Israel, which includes many internationally-acclaimed scientists and covering a wide range of research.
 The work on detector R&D that benefit from an excellent infrastructure for detector development and construction.
 The high level of technical industry that is well qualified to bid for CERN contracts and thereby contributes to the Organization’s programmes.
The Task Force recommends:
 If anything, we should recommend steady funding for long-term projects such as the upgrade of ATLAS and future HEP experiments.
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