FOSTERING INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: THE TAU MODEL
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Date
2016
Authors
Klafter, Joseph
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Journal ISSN
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Abstract
Despite being one of the youngest research institutions in Israel, at 60 years old, Tel
Aviv University is the biggest, with 30,000 students. Almost half of the student body is at
the master’s or doctoral level. It is the most comprehensive institution of higher education
in Israel, with 9 faculties spanning the humanities, arts and sciences, and 125 schools and
departments.
Most of the fields that are taught at Nazarbayev University – such as law, economics,
medicine, public policy and engineering – are also strong areas at Tel Aviv University. Our
graduates and faculty members play leading roles across Israeli society and beyond. They
are Supreme Court Justices, cabinet ministers, political leaders, CEOs of top companies,
health system managers, educators, famous film and theater directors and much more.
In terms of rankings, I think the two most significant ones for this occasion are as follows.
First, Tel Aviv University was recently ranked as a top 100 World Innovation University, and
number 1 in Israel. Second, Tel Aviv University ranks 9th in the world for producing successful
start-up founders. We are the only school among the top 10 outside of the United States. In
other words, our graduates are leading in the entrepreneurship arena right up there with
Stanford and MIT.
Over the past five years, TAU produced 250 founders of startups, each of which attracted
an average of $1.7 million in venture capital investments. One of these companies, whose
co-founder studied economics and philosophy at Tel Aviv University, was sold for over $1
billion to Google.
Now, Tel Aviv University is not a wealthy private university. We do not throw billions of
dollars at our R&D. Rather, we are a public, state-funded, highly regulated institution. Let me
give you some figures for other recognized innovation universities: Stanford and Harvard
spend $800–900 million on research per year. The University of Michigan, which, like us, is a
public university, spends $1.3 billion. By stark contrast, Tel Aviv University spends only $160
million annually on research.
So how do we do it? How do we cultivate a spirit of innovation that translates into patents,
viable technologies and businesses? I believe innovation-building requires at least 6 core
ingredients, and these can be adapted and replicated across different kinds of organizations
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Keywords
Tel Aviv University, Higher Education
Citation
Joseph Klafter; 2016; FOSTERING INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
THE TAU MODEL; GSE; EURASIAN HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS’ FORUM 2016; http://nur.nu.edu.kz/handle/123456789/2348