Israeli Astrophysicist Evinces Scepticism About Proposed Centres of Excellence. (March 18, 2010)

In an opinion piece contributed to Haaretz by Professor Elia Leibowitz of Tel Aviv University's School Of Physics and Astronomy, he states there is good reason to doubt the efficacy of  Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar's proposal to set up 30 university excellence centres, focusing on predefined fields of research and recruiting top Israeli researchers from both outside and inside the country at a cost of NIS 1.30 billion (A$382 million).

Professor Leibowitz believes it would be far cheaper and more effective to simply increase research budgets and create more jobs in Israel's existing research universities. He writes: "Evidence supporting [this] alternative interpretation can be found in the cabinet's plan, which does not give university academics any form of supervision over the proposed centres."

What is exercising Professor Leibowitz is the perception of a hidden agenda, based on previous utterances of Israel's current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, i.e a strategy to counteract opposition within the universities to the government's policies, as well as critical statements and articles about his decisions as prime minister -- what Mr Netanyahu refers to as the "superficial, standard way of thinking" within the university sector.

Professor Leibowitz concludes with sardonic wit: "Perhaps someone should explain to the prime minister that he was mistaken back then [in 1996] when he said academic institutions "simply replicate themselves." If there ever was "uniform thinking" in academic institutions of which he did not approve, it has since completed a 180-degree turn. Maybe some embers of that spirit of free thought are still to be found in Israeli universities, but the prime minister can relax. "Israel's cultural reality" has almost completely shifted in the direction he favours. There is no need now to invest NIS 1.3 billion in rendering a dying [if not] extinct breed."

From an Australian perspective how appropriate are the assessments of the professor from Tel Aviv University to Australia's "Howard Years", the current Rudd government, and a possible Abbott led Coalition government.