The European Parliament was the venue for a high-level conference marking the 20th anniversary of the successful EU-Israel innovation partnership on Thursday, 22nd of June. The event was organized by the office of Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Mr. Carlos MOEDAS, who also honoured the conference with his presence; leading MEPs from the EPP, S&D and ALDE groups; the Mission of Israel to the EU & NATO; and the EU40 organisation. Commissioner MOEDAS opened the conference saying: “Israel's successful & dynamic innovation ecosystem is an inspiration."
Top researchers and investors from Israel and the EU addressed the audience including Prof. Eliezer RABINOVICI, Vice-President of CERN and co-founder of the SESAME project; Prof. Zvia AGUR, EU Women Investor Prize finalist; Prof. Yehuda LINDELL, ECR grantee from Bar-Ilan University; Mr. Yossi VARDI, internet investor and one of the founders of the Israeli "Start-up Nation"; Mr. Martin KERN, Interim Director of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT); and Mr. Angelo RICCABONI, Chair of PRIMA General Assembly. MEP Angelika MLINAR (ALDE, Austria), co-host of the conference, highlighted: "Only by sharing experience, knowledge and best practices we will be able to successfully address our global societal challenges and together achieve excellence."
Mr Angelo RICCABONI emphasised that initiatives like PRIMA (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area) and Food KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Communities) can benefit from Israeli participation and foster EU-Israel relations. "We want to deepen the research and innovation partnership and specifically reach out to the start-up culture in Israel," MEP Christian EHLER (EPP, Germany), co-organizer of the conference, stated. Adam MOUCHTAR, Co-founder and managing director of EU40, equally stressed the importance of this relationship and how future study trips of EU40 MEPs to Israel will benefit Europe.
It is important to note that Israel was the first non-European country to become associated to the EU Framework Programme (FP) for Research and Technological Development. Recently, in an interim evaluation of the current FP Horizon 2020, it was published that Israel is ranked second after Switzerland, with the highest success rates in the programme’s tenders. The academic communities in Israel and Europe interact closely by tackling common challenges together. Mr Aharon AHARON, CEO of the Israel Innovation Authority said: “Israel’s participation in H2020 brought great benefits to both sides.”
Looking forward MEP Eva KAILI (S&D, Greece), co-host of the conference concluded: “Science is definitely the field where we can bring people from different areas all together. There is still room to expand EU-Israel cooperation."
Background information:
In 20 years of partnership, Israeli investment in the programme was around €1.375 billion, while the return to Israeli entities in the form of grants reached €1.7 billion. Over 3,000 projects submitted by Israeli entities were approved involving 4,435 participants.
Israel spends about 4.1% of GDP on R&D. Since the beginning of the Horizon 2020 programme, some 76,400 requests for funding were made in the first two years alone, of which 9,200 projects were approved, at a total cost of €15.9 billion. Of the projects approved, 600 projects included Israeli participants. The total funding for projects involving Israelis amounted to €370 million.
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