The program commenced at the end of 2009 and ended in 2011. The project was initiated by the U.S.-Israel Science and Technology Foundation, was authorized by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor and led by the Chief Scientist of the Ministry.
Innovation 2011 is a strategy for implementing the mission outlined in "Israel 2028 –Vision and Strategy for Economy and Society in a Global World," initiated by the U.S.-Israel Science & Technology Foundation and presented to the Government of Israel. This program is a detailed plan of action to implement recommendations made by Israel 2028 for an industrial innovation policy, specifically related to three out of the ten Israel 2028's key topics: 1) upgrading the traditional industries; 2) leveraging existing emerging technology sectors into global knowledge-intensive industries; and 3) sustaining and strengthening the current hi-tech industry in Israel today. The overall goal of the project is to propose a proactive national industrial innovation policy that leverages the advantages of Israel's science and technology alongside Israel's unique culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.
The sectors studied and their objectives are shown in the figure below, which describes schematically the qualitative contribution of the industrial sectors selected for this study on an S curve of industrial life cycle. These specific segments were selected due to their large business potential and Israel’s relative advantages in each.
Industry life cycle & contribution to national economy
Project teams analyzed Israel's relative strengths and advantages, identified barriers to industrial growth, sector-by-sector, and offered pro-active recommendations to achieve industrial success and sustainability. Today, Israel faces a completely new global situation that poses significant challenges to the continued global competitiveness of Israel's knowledge-intensive economy. These challenges cannot be remedied by quick, simple short-term solutions, but rather require the application of wide-ranging, flexible, comprehensive and visionary national industrial policy.
Publication of the summary report and the project team reports will be done by the USISTF in coordination with Dr. Gilead Fortuna, the program leader. The heads of the projects teams were Giora Shalgi, former CEO of RAFAEL Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., Elad Shaviv, from Cisco, Dr. Ora Dar head of life sciences office of the Chief Scientist, Dr. Ruth Alon, head of ILSI, Professor Shlomo Maital, Senior Research Fellow at SNI, Professor Lt. General (Res) Itzhak Ben Israel, Tel-Aviv University and the head of National Council for R&D, The Yuval Ne'eman workshop, Tel Aviv University, and Dr. Deganit Paikovsky.
Program Leader: Dr. Gilead Fortuna
