Some 120 ambassadors shown Israel's science agenda at Tel Aviv conference

Around 120 ambassadors and science attaches drawn from some 60 foreign missions in Israel attended the annual conference of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology in Tel Aviv on Thursday, September 3, according to a statement published by the ministry. The gathering was held under the title "Israeli Innovation: From the Frontiers of Space to the Local Ecosystem" and was led by the minister of innovation, science and technology, Gila Gamliel, who is also a member of the Ministerial Committee on National Security.

The ministry said the programme presented the country's scientific and technological agenda to the diplomatic corps, covering international research partnerships, artificial intelligence, quantum technology and robotics, national space programmes and funding for younger scientists. An accompanying exhibition, called "Israeli Science," displayed research projects backed by the ministry.

What the ministry does

The Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology is the Israeli government department responsible for civilian research policy, science education programmes and the country's space activity. It is distinct from the Israel Innovation Authority, the state body that supports commercial technology development, and which the ministry described as working to convert scientific knowledge into economic growth. "MK" before a minister's name stands for Member of Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

The ministry said the conference has become a fixture for the diplomatic community based in Israel. Foreign embassies in the country are concentrated in the Tel Aviv area, which is also the centre of the Israeli technology sector, and a number of missions post dedicated science or innovation attaches whose work is to build research links with Israeli universities and companies.

The minister's framing

In her keynote, Gamliel opened with the question of how governments prepare "today for a world that does not yet exist," the statement said. She argued that research spending is a security and resilience matter as much as an economic one.

"In a world changing at an unprecedented pace, the future does not necessarily belong to the largest countries, but to the best prepared countries," Gamliel said, according to the ministry.

She listed the ministry's stated priorities as widening scientific cooperation abroad, investing in people and in outlying regions, spotting transformative technologies early, and strengthening Israel's standing in space.

The numbers put in front of the diplomats

The ministry's account of the conference set out figures for each of those areas. On what it called scientific diplomacy, it said it supports 124 joint research projects with 12 countries at an investment of roughly NIS 44 million. NIS is the new Israeli shekel, the national currency. It said six new memoranda of understanding have been signed with international partners including the United States, the Czech Republic and Azerbaijan, that ties with India, Germany and the United Kingdom have been deepened, and that cooperation is being advanced with France, Italy, Slovakia, Cyprus and Hungary.

On education, the ministry said about NIS 60 million is going into science centres in 241 local authorities, with the stated aim of reaching what Israeli policy language calls the periphery: the geographic and social margins outside the densely populated centre of the country. It said roughly 2,000 young women take part in a programme called "Future Scientists," and that STEM and robotics schemes are being expanded in dozens of communities, among them 43 local authorities in the north.

A further strand, described as horizon scanning, involves building a national capacity to identify emerging technologies early, including artificial intelligence, quantum, critical minerals and robotics, and to feed that into government decisions.

The space items

The space section of the presentation covered the ULTRASAT space telescope, whose launch the ministry said is planned for 2028; a national space research and development laboratory with an investment of NIS 60 million; a national "Space City" in Mitzpe Ramon, a small town in the Negev desert in southern Israel, with an investment of NIS 100 million; the CIEL satellite project run with France; and the approval of Israel's first space law.

Speakers included Shmirit Maman, chair of the Israel Space Agency and a senior scientist at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, who spoke on how observation from orbit cuts across political borders; Miri Yemini, the ministry's chief scientist and a professor at the Technion, on regional research centres; and Oded Rechavi of Tel Aviv University, head of what the ministry called the Radical Science Laboratory, on molecular memory. The lecture segment was led by Shani Edri, who heads the ministry's senior division for international relations.

The event closed with a toast for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, led by the ministry's director general, Omer Shechter, who urged the assembled diplomats to deepen cooperation with Israel.

What the material does not say

The account available is the ministry's own, and no independent report of the conference has been identified. It does not name which countries sent representatives, nor which of the roughly 60 missions were present, and it gives no figures on attendance by region. The periods covered by the spending figures are not specified, and it is not stated whether the sums are annual, committed or already disbursed. The statement does not say when Israel's space law was approved, nor which of the listed collaborations are new commitments as opposed to continuing work. The version of the release available also breaks off mid-sentence in its final line, so the director general's closing remarks are only partly recorded.