Israeli research increasingly isolated one year into Gaza war

Research in Israeli universities faces “catastrophic” damage following a collapse in international collaboration and an exodus of overseas staff and students, one year since the country’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza erupted.

Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, vice-president for global engagement at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, said her institution’s international student recruitment for the coming academic year stood at “less than half” of previous years.

“We cannot be based on Israeli students alone. If your science is not connected to international science, if you’re not in dialogue and collaboration with scholars and students around the world, then science cannot happen,” Professor Bar-Asher Siegal said. 

However, the drop in overseas enrolment varies significantly by region. While students from Asia and Africa have continued to head to Israel, recruitment from Europe and the US has declined “significantly”, according to Professor Bar-Asher Siegal.

Israeli universities have been caught up in international anger over Israel’s retaliation against Hamas in Gaza, which has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians. All of Gaza’s universities have been destroyed in a policy critics have branded “educide”.

The resulting academic boycotts of Israeli universities – both official and unofficial – were hampering the professional progression of early career scholars, Professor Bar-Asher Siegal said.

“This really, really hurts the science and the possibility for our young scholars to create a career for themselves,” she said. “If we go down in grants, if we go down in collaborative research and publication, if we go down in the number of postdocs that get jobs abroad, if we go down in the number of students that come in or are sent abroad…it’s enough to hurt us and, to a certain degree, basically eliminate entire fields, or eliminate our impact in the world.”

Research has been heavily disrupted by the call-up of reservists, while David Harel, president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, said that foreign academics were leaving the country in increasing numbers amid the difficult operating environment.

Israel had already seen a “brain drain” before Hamas’ 7 October attacks, after sweeping reforms of the judicial system brought in by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government resulted in many university staff going on strike last year.

But Professor Harel said this was set to become “much more significant” if the government continued on its current path, which he described as isolating Israeli scholars on the international stage. 

“We’re going to see a lot more animosity against particular scientists, against conferences in Israel, against inviting postdocs and researchers to collaborate abroad. Since science is universal and is based on collaboration and cooperation, that is very, very bad news for Israeli science,” he said.

There are questions over Israel’s future participation in European Union-led research programmes, and while Professor Harel said he did not believe Israel’s position was under threat currently, he has heard growing voices calling for the country to be excluded from such schemes.

“If you want to criticise our government, go ahead, I’m with you on that,” he said. “But if you want to boycott science, that’s a bad idea.”

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com