Israel Tops in World Patents

Israel is a technology powerhouse – but how powerful a powerhouse? Very powerful, it turns out – and now we have the statistics to back up the claim. A study by the Taub Center for Social Policy Research shows that Israel runs circles around even the most advanced countries when it comes to patents, research, and even Nobel prizes!

For example, the study says, Israelis get more patents in the United States per capita (relative to population size) than any of the G7 countries, including the U.S. itself. By 2003, in fact, Israelis had 69% more patents per capita than any of the G7’s. In 1990, by contrast, Israelis got 6% fewer patents than inventors in G7 countries (which in itself is not too shabby, imho).

Nobel prizes? Israel is in sixth place overall in absolute numbers of Nobel Prize winners. Since 2000, Nobel Prizes have been awarded to at least one winner in 20 of 200 countries around the world – while Israelis during that period won 5 Nobels!

Research? Check this out: Israeli economists were cited in more publications (per capita, ie relative to the number of economists in each country) between 1970 and 2000 than economists in any other country in the world. The runner-up is Britain – but Israeli economists were cited seven times more than British economists in magazines, books, periodicals, journals, etc.!

The study has more to say – not so good -about standards of living, poverty, etc. I’ll get to that in the next an upcoming post, but let’s first enjoy this good news, at least for now!

Tags: Great Britain, israel, Middle East, Nobel Prize, Research, Standard of living, Statistics, United States