Academic Research, Higher Education, and Peripheral Development: The Case of Israel

The aims of this study are to identify possible socioeconomic impacts of MIGAL (Galilee Research Institute) and TH (Tel Hai Academic College) on the peripheral northeast’s development. We discuss the effects of academic research and institutions of higher education on mitigating differences between the center and the periphery of the country. MIGAL is a regional R&D center in the northeast peripheral region of Israel. An internationally recognized applied research institute, MIGAL specializes in biotechnology, computational sciences, plant sciences, precision agriculture, and environmental sciences, as well as food, nutrition, and health. Most of MIGAL’s researchers serve as the core faculty at TH. Despite the country’s small surface area, socioeconomic inequality in Israel is high by OECD standards, with wage differences between rich and poor regions reaching up to 400%. In this article, a new type of dataset for the study of the socioeconomic impact of academic research and higher education on peripheral development is proposed—the regional socioeconomic indices (SEIs). Data for MIGAL, TH, and the northeastern peripheral region were collected from the yearly reports of the two institutions and the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. MIGAL was found to serve as a link between research, academic teaching, and socioeconomic development in the northeast periphery. Several variables related to this link and describing MIGAL–TH and northeastern periphery development were analyzed over time: MIGAL’s budget, total number of employees and number of employees with PhDs; number of TH graduate students; and the socioeconomic index (SEI) of the northeastern periphery and its position on the Israeli list of regional SEIs. The signs and significance levels of most of the trends indicate a potential socioeconomic impact of academic research and higher education on peripheral development in the northeast of the country. Research budgets and the creation of jobs for academics living in the region are just a few examples of this impact. The results of the study are useful for academics and policymakers in improvement of the contribution of academic research and higher education to the country’s economic and innovation development.