Informing
Policy
for Progress

The world of engineering and engineers

The book presents the fundamentals of engineering science and engineering art, which is common the various engineering disciplines, which together make up the engineering profession. The book reviews and analyzes especially the principles of the engineering art, the interactions between engineering and science and between engineering and society, as well as the engineering education and […]

Creative Ideation: A Review of the Literature

This research paper surveys over 30 research papers on “creative ideation”, focused on (a) the form of novel and useful ideas, a definition of creativity, and (b) the function, or process, of Creativity (defined as ‘widening the range of choices’). A pervasive theme is the tension between the open, “wild” creative thinking and the disciplined […]

Academia in the pandemia period

Summary of the insights and conclusions brought up in a conference on the activities of academia in the period of the corona crisis. The topic addressed include the role of basic research in the era of crisis, the involvement of academia in the national decision-making process and the education for the job market.

Review of the Impact of Natural Gas Based Transportation Fuels on Air Quality

As Israel attempts to diversify its energy sources, its use of natural gas is rapidly expanding, taking advantage of discovered resources off Israel’s shores in the Eastern Mediterranean. Due to expansion of offshore operations and broader introduction of natural gas into the Israeli economy, emissions of associated air pollutants along with other potential environmental and […]

Towards a reform of the tax system

Israel is facing very large fiscal needs as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and the need to upgrade vital public services after a long period of neglect, and therefore tax increases will be inevitable in the near future. At the same time the many flaws of the Israeli tax system call for urgent reform, […]

Crossing the Valley of Death Between Academic Research and Effective Policy

Why does much valuable academic research fail to impact public policy?  I argue that the way forward to relevance and credibility for economics lies through RCT’s – randomized controlled trials, in which the methodology of scientific experimentation joins with the theoretical insights of behavioral economics. By joining the insights of behavioral economics with the rigor […]

Protective layers in the war on Corona: A realistic model for handling pandemics

The way the Covid pandemic has been addressed in Israel has raised significant issues regarding the decision-making process at the national, community and personal level. This project aims at addressing such challenges at the conceptual level. We propose a three tier approach addressing the national, community and personal level.