Finance Ministry Rewrites Rules for University Technology Transfer

Israel’s Finance Ministry, the Council of University Heads and the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the higher-education system announced a new agreement that will change how university commercialization companies operate. The deal was signed with all Israeli universities except the Weizmann Institute, and it is meant to speed up the move of academic knowledge into industry through patents, licensing and new startups.

The ministry said its review found that commercialization work is often handled by relatively small teams that are expected to understand broad research fields, know leading companies and negotiate deals. To address that, it will encourage private, external firms to specialize in specific sectors, such as agriculture, and act as intermediaries for commissions. These firms will not own patents or draft agreements, but are expected to improve matching between university research and market needs.

A second pillar of the reform is standardizing contracts. Instead of negotiating every transaction from scratch, each university will adopt seven template agreements that can be adjusted only for specific deal details. Finance Ministry officials told Globes that repeated custom drafting wastes time and creates a bureaucratic barrier for companies seeking university technology transfers. Specially tailored deals will still be possible, but they are expected to become the exception rather than the norm.

The government will also add a dedicated budget of several tens of millions of shekels, within the higher-education budget, to reward commercialization companies only if they use the standardized contracts and reach a required share of such agreements. Prof. Daniel Chamovitz said the reform creates, for the first time, a fast, uniform and direct route from the lab to the global market. Budget chief Maharan פרוזנפר, Prof. Ami Moyal and Innovation Authority CEO Dror Bin all said the plan will reduce bureaucracy, strengthen the link between academia and industry, and help Israeli research produce more economic value.