Israel’s academic isolation is becoming harder to ignore
The country’s share of Europe’s prestigious research grants has fallen sharply, while reported cases of foreign researchers refusing collaborations with Israeli institutions have increased. Academic leaders warn that the consequences could extend well beyond funding.
Israel’s position in Europe’s most prestigious research grant program has deteriorated sharply. On Thursday, the European Research Council (ERC) announced the winners of its grants for early-career researchers, a category in which Israel has historically performed particularly well. After consistently receiving around 30 grants a year through 2024, Israeli researchers received just 10 in 2025 and 11 this year.
A Calcalist analysis shows that the decline extends beyond early-career researchers. In the senior category, the number of Israeli recipients fell from 12 grants in 2024 to seven in 2025. Among mid-career researchers, the number fell from 17 to 13. Results for those two categories in 2026 have not yet been published.
The decline comes amid growing concerns over an academic boycott of Israel. Removing Israel from Horizon Europe has long been a strategic objective of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. While Israel has not been removed from the program, its standing within it has clearly weakened.
The Horizon Europe program, under which the ERC grants are awarded, is the European Union’s flagship framework for research and innovation and one of the world’s largest programs for scientific and industrial cooperation. The current seven-year program has a budget of approximately €95.5 billion. Israel has participated in European research programs for 26 years through agreements with the EU that allow Israeli researchers to compete for grants on equal terms with their European counterparts.
An ERC grant is among the most prestigious distinctions available to researchers and is widely regarded as comparable in academic prestige to a major international prize.
Until 2024, Israel regularly secured about 30 ERC grants for early-career researchers, a remarkable figure relative to the country’s size and one that reflected the strength of its academic institutions. In 2025, however, the number fell by 67%, from 30 to 10, while Israel’s ranking dropped from sixth among participating countries to 12th.
The 2026 results offer little evidence of a recovery. Israel received 11 early-career grants and again ranked 12th, suggesting that the decline may be developing into a sustained trend rather than representing a single bad year.
There are several technical factors that may have contributed to the decline. The three countries that historically performed particularly strongly in ERC competitions were Britain, Switzerland and Israel. Switzerland did not participate in the relevant competitions from 2022 through 2024 but returned in 2025, potentially accounting for part of Israel’s decline.
The ERC also changed its evaluation process, increasing the weight given to interviews while reducing the weight assigned to researchers’ résumés. That change may have disproportionately affected Israeli candidates. Promising Israeli researchers commonly complete postdoctoral work at leading universities in the United States, a path that had previously helped strengthen their CVs.
There was also a modest decline in the number of Israeli applications.
But these factors appear insufficient to explain the scale of the deterioration, particularly at some of Israel’s leading academic institutions.
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Tel Aviv University accounted for nearly half of Israel’s early-career grants this year, receiving five. That was an improvement from three in 2025 but still half the 10 grants it received in 2024.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem received no grants this year, compared with three in 2025 and 10 in 2023. The Weizmann Institute received one, unchanged from last year but down sharply from eight in 2024.
The Technion received two grants, while Bar-Ilan University received two and Ben-Gurion University received one.
The deterioration is not limited to the early-career category. In 2025, Israel received seven grants in the senior category, down from 12 in 2024 and 16 in 2022, before the war. In the mid-career category, the number fell from 17 grants in 2024 to 13 in 2025.
Prof. Itai Ater of Tel Aviv University and the Academy Protest group attributed the decline in part to the deterioration in Israel’s international standing.
“The government’s actions in the last four years are seriously damaging the image of the State of Israel in the world, and this is also reflected in the collapse in the number of research grants from the European Union,” Ater said.
He warned that the consequences could extend well beyond individual grants. “Without European research grants and cooperation, more researchers will leave Israel, fewer will return, and not only will academia be damaged, but Israel’s future is in danger,” he said.
The decline in ERC awards comes as Israel faces a broader challenge to its participation in Horizon Europe.
Horizon has become a central strategic target for the BDS movement, and the possibility of Israel being suspended from the program is regarded as one of the most serious potential threats facing Israeli academia.
“If Israel is removed from Horizon, it’s like removing Israeli sports from the Olympics,” a senior official at Israel’s Council for Higher Education warned in May.
Ben-Gurion University's Vice President for Global Engagement, Prof. Michal Bar-Asher described Horizon in even more stark terms: “Horizon is the academy’s oxygen pipeline and it’s a matter of life and death for Israeli academia.”
Removing Israel from the current program would require broad consensus within the EU, making such a move difficult. But the longer-term picture is less certain. Negotiations over Israel’s participation in the next Horizon program are due to take place in 2027, and discussions have already begun.
If the war in Gaza and violence in the territories continue, Israeli academia could face a significantly more difficult negotiating environment.
Meanwhile, universities and researchers abroad are increasingly refusing to participate in research collaborations involving Israeli institutions.
According to data examined by Calcalist, 20 cases of academic boycotts were reported in November 2025. By May this year, the number had risen to 50, a 150% increase.
The cases generally take one of two forms. Foreign researchers either refuse to submit research proposals jointly with Israeli colleagues in the first place, or universities veto collaborations after proposals have been submitted. In some cases, the foreign researcher withdraws; in others, Israeli researchers are asked to leave the project.
There had been hopes that a reduction in the intensity of fighting in Gaza would ease the boycott campaign. But a report published in May by the Task Force to Combat Academic Boycotts suggested otherwise.
“Boycott organizations are well-versed in adapting to changing circumstances,” the report said. It argued that the hostile atmosphere in Europe was being fueled not only by security tensions involving Lebanon and Iran, but also by growing reservations about the Trump administration in the United States, of which Israel is viewed as a close ally.
The concern inside Israel is increasingly about lasting damage rather than a temporary disruption.
Prof. Ami Moyal, chairman of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education, told Calcalist last year that he had met the European Commission’s coordinator on combating antisemitism shortly before taking office.
“She claims that it will take many, many years to heal the rift between Europe and Israel,” Moyal recalled. “That remains etched in my mind. It means that when the war ends, we will have to enter into dialogue and work on building a renewed connection between the academic communities.”
Israeli academia now finds itself under pressure from two directions: an increasingly difficult relationship with European research institutions and a government whose policies have contributed to the deterioration of Israel’s international standing.
That may help explain why Israel’s academic leadership has been cautious in responding to the latest figures.
The Committee of University Presidents said it would study the data and respond once it had a complete picture.
The Council for Higher Education said Israel’s participation in Horizon was “of the highest strategic importance,” arguing that it strengthens research, international ties, academic excellence and the Israeli economy.
The council attributed the recent decline in ERC awards, among other factors, to the cumulative impact of years of war on Israel’s research system. The Council for Higher Education said that Israeli research excellence “remains intact” and that it was working to prevent the damage of recent years from becoming a long-term trend, including through a new program supporting researchers applying for ERC grants.
Prof. David Harel, president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, was more direct about the significance of the numbers.
“The data is very worrying,” he said. The academy had already highlighted an “abnormal decline” in awards to early-career Israeli researchers in its State of Science Report, he noted, adding that the latest figures reinforce the concern that the decline is becoming a trend.
“In our assessment, as the overt and covert academic boycott of Israel expands, so does its weight in harming the grants, achievements, and international collaborations of Israeli researchers,” Harel said.
He added that combating the boycott “must be a national mission.”
