Greece and Israel are two neighboring nations with old historical roots. While old Greece (Athens) is the mother of democracy the old Israelites left behind the heritage of the Old Testament and many ethical and philosophical values which are valid to these days, including one god for one people, etc. Modern Greece and Israel are lively communities but with some major differences in their economic landscape and quite different scientific structure. Israeli scientists, being part of a small and isolated community in the Middle East always aspired to collaborate with scientists from the large democracies with strong scientific apparatus, the US in particular and Germany, UK and France. The economic system in Israel, which encourages creation of small start-up companies, contributed also to strong ties between the Israeli technological community and those of the US and the strong economic powers in Europe.

Greece, an important member of the EU and NATO, sharing the east part of the Mediterranean waters with Israel (as well with other nations) and strategically a close ally of Israel could and should play a larger collaborative role in terms of the research and economic ties with Israel for the benefit of the two nations. In fact this common belief has been borne out by the four scientists who serve as members of the organizing committee and have standing collaborations for sometime now.

Thus, the main objective of this meeting is to foster scientific exchange and explore future collaborations between the two scientific communities of Greece and Israel in the general field of nanosciences including nanobio science, nanophotonics, nanomaterials, etc.

Organizing committee:

Prof. Reshef Tenne,
Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

Prof. Ehud Gazit,
Tel Aviv University, Israel

Prof. Emmanuel Stratakis,
Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) Heraklion, Crete, Greece

Prof. Anna Mitraki,
University of Crete, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

Dr. Alla Zak
Holon Institue of Technology