Prof. Alon Chen, Weizmann Institute of Science: Academic freedom is essential for good research

The Weizmann Institute of Science is one of the world’s leading multidisciplinary basic research institutions in the natural and exact sciences. It is located in Rehovot, Israel, just south of Tel Aviv. It was initially established as the Daniel Sieff Research Institute in 1934, by Lord Israel and Lady Rebecca Sieff of London, in memory of their son Daniel. In 1949, it was renamed for Dr Chaim Weizmann, the first President of the State of Israel and Founder of the Institute.

By Aurel Dragan

The Weizmann Institute has a long history of investigation and discovery rooted in a mission of advancing science for the benefit of humanity. In parallel, it educates a substantial proportion of Israel’s scientific leadership and advances science literacy in schools and among the public. It is because of this unique model that the Weizmann Institute has become one of the highest-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions in the world (ranked second globally by Nature in 2019, and eighth for research quality in the Leiden 2020 ranking) and has produced many world-renowned, award-winning scientists, including Nobel Prize and Turing Award laureates.

During his first visit in Romania, Prof. Alon Chen, President of the Weizmann Institute of Science, took the time to talk to Business Review about the Institute and the role it plays in the world of science.

Can you describe the Weizmann Institute’s core philosophy and approach to scientific research?

Prof. Alon Chen: Weizmann is a research institute; we are not a university, meaning we don’t have undergraduate students. We have a very unique philosophy, doing what is called “curiosity-based research.” We focus on people, on real talent, so we recruit the best possible scientists who want to work at Weizmann and we give them the best labs and the best equipment. They enjoy full academic freedom, as we do not intervene in any way. In my previous position, I was the head of the Department of Brain Sciences, where I had 20 research groups full of people. Each professor has the freedom to pursue his or her dreams and passions. It is important to have this freedom, especially in a small country like Israel where not that many people want to come and live. It is the reason why we focus on human talent rather than on specific questions. We look for the best scientists and we let them conduct any kind of research they want.

A very important thing on our campus is that everyone is in the same place, we are interdisciplinary and we cover many of the biomedical fields, so there is a lot of interaction. The most interesting things in science today are really happening at the points where teams come together and collaborate. And another thing that is unique to Weizmann is the fact that many scientists live on campus. We provide daycare services, swimming pools, grocery stores, theatres—everything is on site. This helps scientists interact with others who work in different fields, even when they go home. We have a total of 4,500 people on campus, including 270 research, including PhD students, post docs, and all the support staff.

How do you measure scientific excellence and how does Weizmann measure up to other leading research institutions?

Within the scientific community there are different ways to measure the success of a research project. There are many journals around the world and a key criterion that signals prestige is where you publish your research, because different journals have different levels of impact on the scientific world. Then it also very much matters how many citings the study has and how many other researchers are talking about it. So, when you assess the impact of research carried out at Weizmann, you’ll see that the Institute is the only one outside the US that is in the top 10 in the Leiden University ranking of research impact. Of course, we also have an internal review process: a panel of external scientists who evaluate the value of our each research area, on a rotating basis every 3-4 years.

What are some of the discoveries for which Weizmann is best known?

Weizmann is engaged in the exact and life sciences—we don’t do humanities research. There are new discoveries every week. One of the best examples of an important discovery is a drug for multiple sclerosis called Copaxone®, which remains the best available treatment 20 years since its launch. At Weizmann, we care about developing solutions that are based on really understanding the cause that leads to an illness, and this is the best approach even when you’re trying to find a cure for the disease. We don’t value our scientists by the number of patents they generate, even though technology transfer income is an important part of our budget. Only 24 percent of our budget comes from the government; 41 percent comes as return on endowment, including royalties on licensing —a very large source of funding. Another 19 percent is brought in directly by our scientists when they obtain research grants. Israel is part of the European Research Council, and the ERC is the main source of grant funding for our scientists. Their success rate with ERC grants is around 50 percent on average (depending on the grant category), while the average European success rate is only 11 percent. It says something about the quality of the scientists and of the work.

How do you explain your success in terms of funding?

It is very simple: it’s because we focus on human talent. When you choose people and not topics, you will see a high success rate. We take the best of the best and put a lot of effort into recruiting. We invest in our scientists and give them the best labs. And they give back—it’s working well. Science today is driven by technology, so the infrastructure is very expensive. Weizmann offers scientists all the support they need to gain access to all the latest equipment. And it is all on our campus; they can use it at will. This is a major part of our success.

What are the Institute’s key areas of focus at the moment?

First of all, we focus on ideas that already have a critical mass of scientists behind it, and we make sure it is a topic in which we have the necessary expertise. Secondly, those topics have to be important (e.g. medical, environmental, etc.). There are five objectives in which we’re going to invest a total of USD 2 billion over the next seven or eight years. The first one is the brain. It is the last frontier in biomedical research and the source of the most devastating disorders, including all the neurogenerative diseases such as Alzheimer or Parkinson. We have 40 research groups on this topic. The second topic is Artificial Intelligence. It is already changing our lives; soon, it will change every aspect of our lives. The third one is astrophysics and particle physics, where we look out into the universe. We are currently building a satellite together with the European Space Agency, the Israel Space Agency, and Germany. NASA is also involved, and it will launch the satellite for us in the first quarter of 2026. The satellite will look for cosmic events like supernovas, the source of every material in nature. It is a very important project for us. The fourth topic is environmental sustainability. Global warming, food security, green energy, health, and the environment—there are so many issues involved. It is our most interdisciplinary topic, with 60 research groups working on different aspects.

Finally, the fifth topic is infectious diseases. The pandemic convinced many researchers to work in this field. We didn’t even ask them to do it, they just wanted to help.

BIO

Prof. Chen, the 11th President of the Weizmann Institute of Science, was born in Israel. He studied biology, receiving his BSc, with distinction, from Ben-Gurion University in 1995, and a PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science through the direct PhD programme, with distinction. During his PhD studies, Prof. Chen also received an MBA from Ben-Gurion University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California; it was there that he began his research into the processes that occur in the brain and the body during stress exposure. He then joined the faculty of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Neurobiology.

Prof. Alon Chen is the incumbent of the Vera and John Schwartz Professorial Chair in Neurobiology. His research on the neurobiology and neuroendocrinology of stress focuses on the genomic and epigenomic mechanisms by which the brain regulates the response to stressful challenges and how this response may be linked to a number of psychiatric and metabolic disorders. The long-term goal of his research is to elucidate the genetic, epigenetic, and cellular pathways and mechanisms by which stressors are perceived, processed, and converted into neuroendocrine and behavioural responses under healthy and pathological conditions.

His lab has made significant discoveries in the field, revealing fundamental genetic and epigenetic aspects of the stress response in both animals and humans, including actions that link specific stress-related genes, epigenetic mechanisms, and brain circuits to anxiety disorders, depression, eating disorders, and metabolic syndrome.

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