About

The Pinhas Sapir Center for Development is an Interdisciplinary Center that was established by Tel Aviv University in Memory of Pinhas Sapir who was among its initiators and founders. This Center is a modest token of gratitude to a person who supported the founding of Tel Aviv University and contributed to its rapid expansion.

Government persona, public institutions, economic organizations, industrial companies and public persons supported the idea of establishing a Center for Development which will bear the name of Pinhas Sapir.

The Center`s Board of Trustees, with the active help of Tel Aviv University made a great effort to raise donations from the Israeli Government and from other entities, in order to create a permanent fund for the Center. The annual income from this fund finances the operational budget of the Center. The Center is an independent judicial body which acts within Tel Aviv University, benefits from its services and is under its academic supervision.

The Center was established in 1975 and deals with promoting the Israeli economy, industry, society, policy, and the cultural-educational aspect. The Center’s main objective is to contribute toward broadening the knowledge and understanding of economic development issues, with emphasis on the Israeli experience. 

The Centers` activity focuses on three areas:

1. Research and Discussion. The Center encourages researchers from Academic institutions, to submit research proposals. These proposals are reviewed by a scientific committee who decides the order of priorities, and accordingly allocates grants for the proposals submitted. The discussion papers are sent to libraries at various universities and are available to the readers.

2. Panel Discussions are mainly on study sessions. These study sessions are dedicated to presentation of the research works prepared within the Center as well as for current problems. These sessions are attended by Government officials and representatives from economic and public institutions, as well as lecturers from the various universities in Israel and abroad.

3. More in-depth discussions on selected issues are conducted within the framework of international conferences attended by well-known researchers from Israel and abroad. Summaries of Conferences are published in books printed in English by highly respected publishing houses.

Current information on the Centers’ activities is distributed in a data sheet listing the Sapir Centers’ activities during recent years.