Social Capital and the Absorption of Immigrant Scientists and Engineers into Israeli Communities of Experts

Abstract

DURING THE EARLY 1990S, ISRAEL experienced a massive influx of immigration from the former Soviet Union, now amounting to approximately one-sixth of the Jewish population in Israel. This immigration wave has influenced Israeli society and the economy in a variety of ways, and has attracted considerable research attention.! We focus on a neglected topic, namely the level of absorption of immigrant scientists and engineers into the Israeli community of science and engineering. During the early 199os, various position holders in the Israeli government realized that many of the new immigrants were highly educated and experienced in scientific and technical work. Some of the immigrants had even held top-level positions in various research facilities in their country of origin. It also soon became clear that the existing academic and technological infrastructure in Israel could not absorb all the scientists and engineers, and the government quickly launched a number of initiatives to solve the problem. The Government Program for Technological Incubators (GPTI), which we study here, was one of these government initiatives, and was placed under the supervision of the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade. Several goals underlie the establishment of the GPTI. Primarily, the government wished to prevent a brain drain of scientists, engineers, and technicians by securing jobs for them within Israel's high-tech industry. For example, one of the rules of the GPTI was that at least 50% of the incubator's workforce must be composed of new immigrants. Second, as part of a larger Zionist agenda, the incubator program was intended to absorb immigrant Jews into Israeli society, and to geographically settle many of them in the periphery, consisting of border towns and other places distant