The sea component in Israel’s security and resilience is of crucial importance. There is a significant gap between the importance of the sea to the State of Israel and the research activity in the field, which causes a lack of awareness of the maritime space and the lack of public discourse on the subject. Israel is considered an “economic island”, since most of its exports and imports are made by sea, due to its unique geo-strategic location in the eastern Mediterranean to the shores of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea; the proportion of the high population living in its coastal strip of the Mediterranean Sea; Discovery of natural gas deposits in Israel’s economic waters; Israel’s absolute dependence on maritime trade (import and export); The sea as the engine of economic growth (blue economy), desalination of water from the sea as a main component of drinking water in Israel, as well as the sea as a single area available for new infrastructures and the evacuation of dangerous infrastructures from populated areas. All of these create challenges and opportunities in the marine sector.

The development of blue economy as a long-term strategy aimed at supporting sustainable economic growth and the establishment of the Institute for Maritime Policy and Strategy (MPS) at the National Center for Blue Economy and Innovation under HiCenter, the Center for Technological Entrepreneurship in Haifa Ltd., is a complementary step to the positioning of the city of Haifa as a capital of blue economy in Israel.

The Institute for Maritime Policy and Strategy (MPS) at the National Center for Blue Economy and Innovation in Haifa is an independent, non-partisan research institute that operates in the Israeli public arena in the fields of policy, strategy and maritime security (Maritime Security) in the broadest sense.