![]() | This article may lend undue weight to certain companies and programmes. (April 2024) |
Science and technology in Israel is one of the country's most developed sectors. Israel spent 4.3% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on civil research and development in 2015, the highest ratio in the world.[1] In 2019, Israel was ranked the world's fifth most innovative country by the Bloomberg Innovation Index.[2] It ranks thirteenth in the world for scientific output as measured by the number of scientific publications per million citizens.[3] In 2014, Israel's share of scientific articles published worldwide (0.9%) was nine times higher than its share of the global population (0.1%).[4][1]
Israel counts 140 scientists and technicians per 10,000 employees, one of the highest ratios in the world. In comparison, there are 85 per 10,000 in the United States and 83 per 10,000 in Japan.[5] In 2012, Israel counted 8,337 full-time equivalent researchers per million inhabitants.[1] This compares with 3,984 in the US, 6,533 in the Republic of South Korea and 5,195 in Japan. Israel's high technology industry has benefited from both the country's highly educated and technologically skilled workforce coupled with the strong presence of foreign high-tech firms and sophisticated research centres.[6][1]
Israel is home to major companies in the high-tech industry and has one of the world's most technologically literate populations.[7] In 1998, Tel Aviv was named by Newsweek as one of the ten most technologically influential cities in the world.[8] Since 2000, Israel has been a member of EUREKA, the pan-European research and development funding and coordination organization, and held the rotating chairmanship of the organization for 2010–2011.[9][10] In 2010, American journalist David Kaufman wrote that the high-tech area of Yokneam, Israel, has the "world's largest concentration of aesthetics-technology companies".[11] Google Chairman Eric Schmidt complimented the country during a visit there, saying that “Israel has the most important high-tech center in the world after the US.”[12] Israel was ranked 14th in the Global Innovation Index in 2023,[13] down from tenth in 2019.[14] The Tel Aviv region was ranked the 4th global tech ecosystem in the world.[15]