Nestled in the heart of Rehovot, the Weizmann Institute is at the centre of Israel’s scientific revolution. With 2,500 faculty and staff, 274 laboratories and hundreds of patents and successful discoveries, breakthroughs made there have impacted upon the lives of millions.
They range from ground-breaking treatments for multiple sclerosis, leukaemia and prostate cancer, to the chip-and-pin technology used for credit-card payments.
It all began with a walk in Hyde Park where, in 1933, Chaim Weizmann, the scientist and Zionist leader, met Israel Sieff, a British Jewish philanthropist, to discuss setting up a scientific research centre in what was then the British Mandate.
It was founded the following year and, 84 years later, I have come to talk to the person who best embodies the continuing link between British Jews and the Institute.
Dr Arabella Duffield is the new Chair of Weizmann UK, the British organisation which, since 1950, has provided significant support to the Institute.
She is the third generation of a family with a strong connection to the Rehovot institute, following her mother, Dame Vivien Duffield, and her grandfather, property magnate Sir Charles Clore.
A photograph from 1976 shows her, aged four, on Golda Meir’s knee. “I would go with my mother every few years [to Israel], and the Weizmann was always part of our visits. It was fun, as a child, to go there”, she tells me.
Dr Duffield, who has a PhD in public health, believes her connection played a role in her choice of career.
“I did science A-Levels and I didn’t apply for university until after A-level. And in that July and August I went to the Weizmann.
“I loved my time in the labs. It sounds so geeky but I really did enjoy it, it was fascinating. Then I applied to university. I think having been to the Weizmann helps your university application process!”
She added: “The whole joy of the Weizmann, and the reason why it does so well in all the innovation and league tables, is that they select the best scientists in the world. And they’re really allowed to do whatever they want; basic fundamental research.
“It’s really about enquiring. This is why it’s so inspiring to be with them. They’re not setting out to make a drug that will deal with such and such a problem, they’re going right back to the beginning and thinking about things from their very basics.”
Weizmann UK runs a number of key programmes with which she has been involved.
“What I love is that it brings scientists from different universities in Britain together with the Weizmann, so it exposes both sides to each other,” Dr Duffield says.
It is also, by its very nature, a total rejection of the idea promoted by some anti-Israel activists of an academic boycott of Israelis.
“I just think that stopping academic research for the good of humanity makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
“Scientists are influenced by their environment, whether or not they pretend they’re not. So to get scientists from different environments mixing their ideas can only be a clever thing to do, because you spark off each other and you go in new directions — and hopefully in a direction which will in the end give us a breakthrough.”
Although the Institute has close connections with several UK academic institutions, the strongest is with the University of Manchester, where Chaim Weizmann taught chemistry.
“As a result of collaborations that we’ve had with scientists from Manchester and the Weizmann in the life sciences, they have established the first ever joint PhD programme,” says Sheridan Gould, Executive Director of Weizmann UK.
“We’re really encouraging younger research scientists to participate in the programme.”
Another initiative, Women in Science, funds female Israeli scientists to do post-doctoral studies abroad.
“It came out of a discussion with female scientists as to why aren’t there so many women scientists, when at undergraduate level there are the same number as men, but not higher up,” says Dr Duffield.
“This was the problem. If you’re a scientist in Israel and you’ve done your undergraduate degree and then your PhD, it’s considered to be a good idea in most cases to get some exposure to the rest of the world, to go into a lab in America or Europe.
“On top of that, often the women have children a bit younger than they would over here or in America. So what happens is that at this critical point when women, very good scientists, want to go abroad, they quite often have a family. And that makes it really quite difficult, just practically, for them to move.
“So this initiative is really an injection of support [mostly in cash] to help women move with their families so that they can get these great positions and then they can come back to Israel after.”
