The History of Britech

Britech was founded in late 1999 for an initial term of five years ('Britech 1').  An outline of some of the achievements of Britech 1 is given below, and a document describing Britech's first five years may be viewed or downloaded here.

Britech 1

Britech was formed with one primary aim:  to further the economic and commercial relationships between the UK and Israel by encouraging collaborative research and development partnerships between UK and Israeli high-technology companies.   Though the economic and political environment has been difficult during these early years, Britech has been highly successful in attaining this primary goal, while achieving significant additional benefits for the technology base in both countries.

Britech is more than just a grant-awarding body.  Recipients of Britech funding undertake to repay up to 150% of the funds received in the form of a royalty on their sales following successful commercialisation, and the first such royalty income has already been received.  Furthermore, the objectives of Britech projects are set in terms not of national markets, but of international – and often global – markets resulting from the collaborative developments.  Enormous spin-off benefits have been achieved in many instances through mutual exploitation of existing technologies and market position.

The key elements of Britech are now summarised in the next section.