Annual Report 2001 » From the President

It is customary to begin the Annual Report of the Weizmann Institute with some words by the President describing recent developments and outlining current challenges faced by the Institute. In writing my 12th and last annual message as President, however, I am permitting myself a somewhat more personal approach. On December 1, 2001, I will be leaving office after 13 years as President of the Weizmann Institute. These 13 years span three different decades and two centuries. During this time, scientific research has remained an exciting intellectual endeavor, but has also acquired an increasingly economic and industrial dimension.

 

The explosion in hi-tech and biotechnology and the impending marriage of the information and genetic revolutions have all occurred during this period. We have also seen the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the immigration to Israel of a million Jews from the former Soviet Union, including hundreds who have joined the Institute.

 

We have endured the Gulf War, two Palestinian intifadas, and numerous acts of terror, which, fortunately, did not touch the Institute or its employees directly. We have strengthened our scientific relations with the European Union without diminishing our close collaboration with individual European countries, first among which is Germany. We have witnessed the arrival at the Institute of numerous young scientists from China, India, and other Asian countries, and the first few Arab scientists from countries who have begun scientific relations with Israel.

 

The Institute itself has changed dramatically. At the end of 1988 we had an endowment of $130 million and an accumulated deficit of approximately $50 million. Today our endowment exceeds $500 million and the deficit has been eliminated. During these years, we raised a staggering $1 billion in donations – directed partly to new construction and partly to new endowments, with the rest allocated to ongoing operations. Our external research grants have doubled; they now exceed 1,000 at any given time, totaling almost $50 million per annum. More than half of our current 200 tenured professors joined us during this period, establishing a new generation of outstanding scientists, while the founding fathers of most of the original scientific departments have retired.

 

We have entirely reorganized every one of our five faculties and created dozens of new research centers and institutes and several new scientific departments. During this period every single building on campus has been either newly built, thoroughly renovated, or totally restructured in scientific content. The number of scientists and graduate students has increased substantially while that of non-scientific personnel has dramatically declined. Major facilities are now dedicated to such fields as nanophysics and nanochemistry, transgenic animals, and bioinformatics - terms that simply did not exist in 1988. Our commercial arm, YEDA, has increased its royalty income fifty-fold. Only a handful of universities and research institutes worldwide outperform us in this respect.

 

Perhaps most significantly: thanks to the emphasis on multidisciplinary research laid down by the Institute’s founding fathers, today we are home to a unique mixture of science and technology. Our main source of strength lies in our ability to combine seemingly unrelated scientific fields. While we continue to preach and practice the sanctity of basic research, we successfully apply it to practical problems, often reaping the fruits of such efforts.

 

Today, science is a complex, multifaceted intellectual adventure, resembling a large orchestra performing without a conductor. While each individual pursues a particular specialty, the total output depends on a collaborative effort involving numerous scientific fields and a wide range of techniques. It is an exciting challenge, but not an easy task, to manage such deliberately organized chaos.

 

The Institute has strengthened its international standing, contacts, and recognition. We currently have more than 200 foreign scientists and graduate students on campus, and more than a quarter of our publications are co-authored by scientists from foreign institutions. We are totally integrated within the international scientific community, while continuing to make an invaluable contribution to Israel in developing its sophisticated industry, its science education programs, and its economic infrastructure.

 

As we embark upon the new century with the necessary physical and intellectual tools, we have every reason to be proud of our achievements. The 2,500 men and women of the Weizmann Institute and the many members of the international Weizmann Institute family are our guarantee of continued success. I thank every one of you for your devotion, wisdom, and affection.

 

 

Prof. Haim Harari