Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities

The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities describes itself as a national focal point for Israeli scholarship across the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences.[1] It serves three overlapping roles: an honorary body recognizing excellence, an advisory institution that counsels the government on research and science policy, and an active promoter of scholarship through funding, publishing, and international cooperation.[1] The Academy's president is appointed by the president of the State on the Academy's recommendation, and appointment to the office is listed among the constitutional duties of Israel's head of state involving offices of special importance and independence.[5][1]

Under the National Library Law of 2007, the president of the Academy chairs the National Library of Israel's council, whose responsibilities include appointing members of the library's board of directors.[6] This institutional role places the Academy at the center of Israel's broader cultural and research infrastructure, linking its leadership to the stewardship of the nation's documentary heritage.

The Academy's origins lay in a proposal by Minister of Education Ben-Zion Dinur and a committee of prominent scientists, who called for two independent national academies — one for natural sciences and one for humanities.[3] In November 1957, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion formally endorsed the creation of a single combined institution instead.[3] A preparatory committee had been appointed by government resolution on November 9, 1958.[2] Following further preparations, Martin Buber proclaimed the Academy's establishment on December 27, 1959. The first General Assembly, chaired by Ben-Gurion, elected him as the Academy's first president.[3][7]

Aharon Katzir, who had been instrumental in the Academy's founding, served as its vice president from 1960 to 1962 and then as president from 1962 to 1968.[8] Katzir and Gershom Scholem subsequently worked with the government's Ministerial Committee on Legislation to draft the Academy Law, which the Knesset approved in June 1961.[3] The law established the Academy as a body corporate with its seat in Jerusalem, provided for life membership subject to specified termination conditions, and allowed for election of eminent scholars and scientists resident abroad as non-resident members.[2]

The Academy is divided into two sections — Sciences and Humanities — with the Humanities section also encompassing social sciences.[1] The two sections share equal responsibility in conducting its affairs.[1] The Sciences Division comprises 81 researchers across fields including biology, engineering, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, physics, life sciences, geology, and medicine.[9] The Humanities Division had 76 members in 2024–2025, spanning archaeology, linguistics, Jewish history, Hebrew language, economics, classics, religious studies, political science, Jewish thought, Bible studies, law, literature, statistics, psychology, and philosophy.[10]

The Academy's Council includes the president, the outgoing president as an honorary member, the vice president, the chairs of the two sections, and the director general.[1] Three plenary sessions are held each year, and each section meets up to three times annually.[11] Members are elected by the General Assembly and serve for life, though members aged 75 vacate their active positions to make way for new members while retaining full membership status.[11] In January 2026, total membership was reported at 157.[4] The Academy Law requires the Academy to prepare an annual report on its activities and, every three years, a comprehensive overview of the state of science and research in Israel compared with global trends; these reports are submitted to the Minister of Science and Technology and the Knesset's Science and Technology Committee.[2]

One of the Academy's most consequential contributions to Israeli science has been the creation and stewardship of competitive research funding. In the 1970s, the government entrusted the Academy with implementing competitive grants for basic research, and the Academy established a Branch for Basic Research, later called the Basic Research Foundation.[12] The Israel Science Foundation became an independent nonprofit in 1995, but retained a close institutional relationship with the Academy: under the Foundation's bylaws, the Academy president chairs its council.[12] By 2026 the Foundation had a budget of close to NIS 810 million across its grant pathways and funded approximately 2,300 individual research grants through its core programs.[12]

An earlier historical account refers to the Academy-founded funding body as the Israel National Science Foundation and describes it as having become Israel's largest and broadest research foundation, largely funded by VATAT.[13] It reports that the Foundation received 726 research proposals in 1993 and approved 204; VATAT's allocation was $17.5 million in 1994, with growth to $20 million scheduled for 1995.[13]

Beyond grant funding, the Academy facilitated landmark agreements that integrated Israeli scientists into major international research facilities. Negotiations conducted by the Academy were instrumental in Israel joining the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility as an associate member in 1999.[9] The Academy also facilitated Israeli scientists' participation in CERN's high-energy physics research, and Israel became a full CERN member in 2014 after nearly 25 years as an observer state.[9] The Foulkes Fund for Medical Research and the Adams scholarship for doctoral studies are among the additional programs the Academy has initiated or administered.[11]

The Academy maintains an active publishing house that had issued hundreds of scholarly books across its history.[11] Its publications span a wide disciplinary range, from the natural sciences to humanistic inquiry. Among the volumes recorded in the National Library of Israel's catalog is Avinoam Danin's Distribution Atlas of Plants in the Flora Palaestina Area (2004), a 519-page work with maps issued in the Academy's Publications series, Section of Sciences.[14]

In the humanities, the Academy published a 1993 map, Eretz Israel during the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods, edited by Yoram Tsafrir and Leah di Segni and manufactured by the Survey of Israel; it consists of two color sheets, each 94.3 by 69 centimeters, at a scale of 1:250,000.[15] In 2005, the Academy issued an electronic database of documents in Israeli archives concerning the history of the British Mandate in Palestine, 1914–1948, researched and edited by Dvorah Barzilay-Yegar; the project was a cooperative effort with the British Academy to survey public and private archives in both Great Britain and Israel, and was issued on an optical disc with instruction booklets.[16]

The Academy's council approved recommendations on the future of the humanities in Israel's research universities at a meeting on November 14, 2006, subsequently published as a 46-page Hebrew-language document in 2007.[17] More recent publications include Benny Morris's 2017 chapter "Weizmann and the Arabs" in the volume Chaim Weizmann: Scientist, Statesman, and Architect of Science Policy, edited by Benjamin Z. Kedar.[18] The Academy's Hebrew-language scholarship is likewise documented in its catalog: a 2019 chapter by Uri Mor on the predicative infinitive construct in Second Temple Hebrew appeared in a collection on language change and variation, published by the Academy in Jerusalem.[19]

The Academy maintains formal agreements with more than 40 international institutions, most of them national academies of science.[20] These agreements support bilateral and multinational science workshops, exchanges of international scholars, postdoctoral scholarships, and regional scientific activities.[20] Named partner institutions include the British and Canadian Royal Societies, Germany's Leopoldina and the Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the American National Academy of Sciences, and Singapore's National Research Council.[11] The Academy represents Israeli researchers in nearly all scientific unions of the International Science Council and is a founding member of ALLEA (All European Academies), AASSA (the Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia), and the Inter-Academy Partnership.[20]

The Academy established the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo in 1982, following the March 1979 Israel–Egypt cultural agreement and on the initiative of Israeli universities and the Israel Oriental Society.[21] The Center's historical mission has been to strengthen academic connections between Egypt and Israel, help scholars access library and archival materials, and foster joint research.[21] Its activities were reduced after the 2011 Egyptian revolution and subsequent political events; the Center and its library later reopened, though lectures were suspended pending suitable circumstances.[21]

The Academy also represents Israeli scholarship and science at international institutions and conferences, and at the time of a 2017 report it was involved in approximately 40 bilateral academic exchange programs.[11]

In 2007 the Academy established a contact center dedicated to helping Israeli researchers abroad return to Israel and integrate into the country's academic and research institutions.[11] By the time of a 2017 report, more than 700 returnees had been hired by Israeli universities and colleges since the center began operating, of whom 505 had become tenured faculty members, including 76 appointed during the year preceding that article.[11] The center registered 3,240 young Israeli researchers seeking help returning, and a Jerusalem career fair connected visiting researchers with universities, colleges, and private companies.[11]

The Knesset Research and Information Center reported that in 2019 the contact center publicized 277 open positions — including 160 at universities — and that 107 researchers joined Israeli universities with its support: 51 as faculty members and 56 as postdoctoral researchers or laboratory managers.[22] The center also held an annual conference and career fair and funded travel grants for researchers abroad to present at scientific conferences in Israel; examples include 20 grants for the 2014 ILANIT life sciences conference, 17 additional grants in 2017, and 19 in 2020.[22]

The Academy's public-facing activities have extended well beyond the research community. In 2017 these included public lectures on subjects such as migration and revolutions, humanities lectures in northern and southern Israel, and events for high-school teachers and pupils in Jerusalem.[11] The Academy also participated in the Intel-Israel Young Scientists' Competition and was involved in a Ben-Gurion Airport exhibition about Israeli scientific discoveries, proposed by the Young Academy — whose members were described as excelling in science and being committed to social goals.[11] The Young Academy itself was founded by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.[23] The Academy's Humanities Division launched the Young Scholars Forum in the Humanities and Social Sciences in 2004 to bring together outstanding young scholars and promote interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration, and established the Forum for the Study of the Abrahamic Religions in 2023–2024.[10]

The Academy Law requires the Academy to produce a triennial overview of the state of science and research in Israel relative to world standards; these reports are submitted to the Minister of Science and Technology and the Knesset's Science and Technology Committee.[2] The 2025 report was the fifth in the series and was prepared over approximately two years by a committee led by Academy member Prof. Adi Kimchi, with six subcommittees comprising 30 scholars.[24]

The 2025 report surveyed basic research across the humanities, social sciences, exact sciences, life sciences, and medicine, and also examined research infrastructure, international standing, and the effects of the post-October 7, 2023 war on Israeli science.[24] Its executive summary reported that Israel ranked first among participating countries in European Research Council grant success rate from 2015 to 2024, achieving a 23% success rate — a finding that underscored the quality of Israeli research even as the report noted a concurrent decline in Israel's relative share of global scientific publications.[24]

The report's overall picture, as characterized by Israeli media, was one of scientific excellence and international recognition alongside erosion associated with reduced national investment and the effects of war.[25] Concerns raised included underfunding, declining government support, international exclusion and boycotts, brain drain, aging research infrastructure, and structural barriers for women, Arab scientists, and other underrepresented groups.[4] War-related effects identified in the report included cancellations of most international conferences planned in Israel for 2024–2025, fewer invitations for Israeli researchers to participate in conferences and seminars abroad, reported publication difficulties, and some European universities announcing severance of scientific ties with Israel; reserve-duty call-ups and the departure or non-arrival of international researchers and students were also cited as factors slowing research progress.[24]

The Academy has acted as a vocal defender of academic independence in several distinct arenas. In autumn 2004, then-minister Natan Sharansky convened a meeting with presidents of Israeli universities and the Academy to discuss academic boycotts; the gathering prompted concern among academic representatives about possible government interference in academic affairs.[26] In 2006, after administrators at Utrecht University sought changes to Prof. Pieter van der Horst's farewell lecture on Islamic antisemitism, the Academy invited him to lecture in Israel and said there would be "no attempt to influence the content of his lecture."[26] In response to growing international pressure on Israeli academia following the October 7, 2023 attack, the Academy's council appealed in May 2024 to academic institutions abroad to oppose antisemitism and boycotts of Israeli research institutions and scientists, warning that such boycott actions threatened academic freedom and international collaboration, disrupted cooperative projects, mutual visits, and joint conferences, and risked harming Israeli participation in international research programs.[27]

In a December 2023 interview, Academy president David Harel said there were scattered signs of possible academic boycotts but that a broad, clearly observable boycott or widespread calls to boycott Israeli scientists had not yet been established; he cited a perceived decline in international reviewers' willingness to assess Israeli Science Foundation grant applications and warned that continued criticism could deepen the problem.[28] To counteract the trend, the Academy's leadership met with Germany's minister of higher education and the heads of Germany's academy, and sent a letter to foreign universities and academic institutions; Harel reported receiving supportive responses from some institutions, including research facilities and particle accelerators in Geneva and Grenoble.[28]

In May 2025, the Academy Council warned that discussions about ending Israel's participation in the EU's Horizon research program posed a real danger to Israeli science, and called on the government to protect the EU partnership agreement and maintain scientific and economic cooperation with Europe.[29] The council cautioned that damage to the agreement could affect research funding, ties with research institutions, participation in international projects and infrastructure, recruitment and retention of researchers, and Israel's standing in global science.[29]

The Academy also raised objections to proposed domestic legislative changes. In 2023, the council opposed a government initiative to amend the National Library Law in a way that would transfer appointment of the library's board from an independent public council to a government minister, arguing this would compromise the library's independence and could damage its role as a research institution; the council warned that collections and promised donations could be withdrawn and that the library might face practical dissolution.[6]

A proposed 2026 amendment to the Council for Higher Education Law prompted Academy Council warnings about political control over higher education and research. In discussing the Academy's own institutional safeguards, president David Harel offered a hypothetical warning: if its rule for electing new members were changed to require governmental approval, the Academy's independence would be undermined and at least half its members might resign.[4] The governmental-approval scenario was Harel's warning about how political control could be extended to the Academy, not a provision reported as part of the proposed bill.

Debate has also surrounded the extent and nature of academic boycotts against Israeli researchers. Academy president Harel stated in December 2023 that a broad, clearly observable boycott had not yet been established, a characterization that differed from claims by other Israeli bodies describing an unofficial boycott already under way.[28] Meanwhile, the Academy's own 2025 State of the Sciences report identified concrete effects — conference cancellations, fewer invitations, and some European universities announcing severance of scientific ties — that the Academy attributed in part to post-war political pressures.[24]

Sources differ slightly on the precise chronology of the Academy's founding: Encyclopaedia Britannica dates it to 1959, while Encyclopedia.com describes it as established by the Knesset in 1961.[30][31] The Academy's own historical account distinguishes the proclamation of the Academy's establishment by Martin Buber on December 27, 1959, from the Knesset's formal approval of the Academy Law in June 1961.[3] Membership figures reported in different years also vary — 120 members in a 2017 account, 148 in 2024, and 157 in January 2026 — reflecting different reporting dates rather than inconsistency in the sources.[11][27][4]