Leigh Engineering Faculty Boulevard, Tel Aviv University. Photo: Ido Perelmutter via Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Israel has sent a larger proportion of academic researchers to the United States compared to any other country, relative to the size of national population, according to a US State Department survey.

The number of Israeli researchers working in America reached 1,725 in 2017—an increase of 5.6 percent from the previous year—according to the US State Department’s Institute of International Education’s Open Doors data portal.

The extent of the academic talent is demonstrated in that the number is equal to the entire faculty of two to three typical Israeli higher-education institutions, and 625 more than the entire senior faculty of Israel’s biggest: Tel Aviv University.

The survey consists of people doing tentative academic activities and not matriculated as students at American colleges and universities. They also don’t consist of folks working full-time in teaching or business research.

“Most of the researchers who go abroad are joining the world’s top laboratories, which testifies to the high quality of the academic system in Israel,” Rosa Azhari, president of the Azrieli College of Engineering and a former member of the Council for Higher Education, told The Times of Israel.