The Institute will constitute a center for research activity of the staff members from the different academic units whose activity is in the wide spectrum of transportation research. This Institute will constitute a framework for research collaboration in the fields of transportation engineering, will prevent duplications and will establish conditions for cross-fertilization among researchers. The Institute will assist in directing and coordinating of the activity in this subject at the Technion in order to initiate cooperative research projects for civil engineering, architecture and town planning, industrial engineering and management, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, agricultural engineering and other fields of transportation engineering. The Institute will maintain relationship with economic and industrial entities in the country and will initiate projects of economic and industrial potential. The Institute will work in collaboration with all faculties and interested units from the Technion that deal with research which has direct or indirect implications for the subject.
2. Structure
2.1. Head of Institute
The Institute will be led by the “Head of Transportation Research Institute” who will be appointed by the President with consolation with the Vice President for Research, on the recommendation of the Heads of Interested Units, after recieving the opinions of senior staff members in their units. The duration of the appointment of the Head of Institute will be three years. The Head of Institute will keep the intra-unit character of the Institute in all research programs, Institute development, appointments etc., and will nurture the collaboration with interested units. The Head of Institute will often gather the Institute members for a discussion over the current activity of the Institute, and its research and development programs.
2.2. Heads of Units Committee
The members of the committee will be the Head of Institute, Heads of Interested Units and a senior staff member from other faculty who will be appointed by the central committee after consultation with the Head of Institute. The Head of Unit is allowed to appoint as his representative, one of the senior staff members of his unit. Heads of Units Committee will assemble prior to the Institute’s budget submission. Towards this meeting the Head of Institute will submit a report regarding the activity of the Institute in the past year, work plans and a budget proposal. The committee will hold a discussion regarding the report, the work plan and the budget proposal. The budget which will be submitted by the Institute to the Technion’s management, through the Vice President for Research, requires the opinion of the Heads of Units Committee. In this meeting the Heads of Units Committee will be able to choose a smaller committee which will consist of the Head of Institute and two other Heads of Interested Units. The Head of Institute will gather the Heads of Units of the smaller committee at least 4 times a year. In these meetings the Head of Institute will provide current information regarding the Institute’s activity, and the committee will decide on the budget distribution and will approve the allocation of Institute’s resources to different projects. The Heads of Units Committee or the smaller committee will also gather upon request of one or more of the Heads of Interested Units. Once a request for gathering the smaller committee was initiated by a Head of Unit who is not a member of the smaller committee, this Head of Unit will be invited to a meeting which will be held upon his request. The Head of Institute will coordinate the meetings of the Head of Units Committee (full committee and smaller one) except for the meeting designated for a discussion over the appointment of the Head of Institute, and submitting recommendations to the President on the matter. According to section 2.1, in those meetings the Head of Institute will not participate.
2.3. Consulting Committee
The Consulting Committee will consist of members of the Head of Units committee, two representatives of the Transportation Ministry, one representative of Israel’s National Roads Company (the Ministry of Labor) and other representatives from the transportation field as will be determined from time to time by the Head of Institute with consultation with the Vice President for Research. The role of the Consulting Committee is to consult in the complex of topics that are transportation related. This committee will be informed over the conduction of researches performed at the Institute once a year. The head of Consulting Committee will be the Head of Institute, who will gather the committee at least twice a year.
The members of the Consulting Committee will be appointed as follows:
Representatives of the Transportation Ministry
Representatives of Israel’s National Roads Company by the Minister of Labor
Representatives of other entities by the heads of these entities
3. Institute Staff
3.1. Academic Staff
Each appointment of Institute members will be done by the interested units. In the Letter of Appointment will be noted that the staff member belongs to a certain interested unit and to the Transportation Institute. These members will be members of their units for all purposes except for their research activity that will be conducted in the framework of the Transportation Institute. Each appointment will be for three years at most, with a renewal option. The Head of Institute will be joined to the preparing committees as well as the professional committees of the Institute’s staff members (regarding appointments and promotion). Each appointment requires the agreement of the Head of Institute. Nevertheless, an interested unit can ask for an appointment of a staff member in the field of transportation without him/her being part of the staff members of the Institute. However, the unit will inform the Head of Institute on this. A staff member of the Technion who is interested in joining the Institute Staff (in addition to him/her being part of to the unit as mentioned above) – his/her join is conditional on the agreement of the Head of Unit and the Head of Institute. In case of disagreements, the matter will be brought to the President for ruling (except for guests). All manpower standards of staff members of the Institute will be part of the interested units’ standards.
3.2. Guests
In contrary to what mentioned above, the Institute will be able to invite guests (such as a guest researcher, a guest professor etc.) or a fellow researcher, on the account of research budget, to the Institute alone (i.e unrelated to the interested units) for a time period of no longer than two years. Every time the Head of Institute will address the Vice President for Academic Affairs in a request to issue a guest appointment, copies will be sent to all Heads of Interested Units. The Institute will encourage the invitation of guests from local economy and industry sectors, in order to enable them to conduct research with common interest with the Technion and these entities.
3.3. Technical and Administrative Staff
Technical and administrative staff of the Institute will be appointed directly by the Institute.
4. Teaching
The Institute members will be able to offer courses only in the interested academic units.
5. Research
The Institute will perform basic and useful research in the transportation fields, and will encourage research projects that demand knowledge in related fields such as civil engineering, architecture and town planning, industrial engineering and management, mechanical engineering etc. Researches with practical intentions will be conducted with the participation of researchers from economic and industrial sectors, and industrial consulting will be given with a possibility of using the Institute’s laboratories for guest researchers from the industry. The Institute will encourage cooperation with economic and industrial entities for introducing scientific ideas to transportation matters. The Institute will include in its plan of action research proposals of the Institute’s members and will see to adequate funding.
6. Budget
The Institute will constitute an independent budget unit. The salary of each Institute member will be paid by the academic unit to which he/she belongs. Nonetheless, the research and operation budget as well as the budget for the technical staff, guests and research fellows will be given directly to the Transportation Institute. The Institute will set itself as a goal to cover its budget through funded researches that will be conducted by the members of the Institute. In case they are interested, the Heads of Interested Units will be allowed to receive current information regarding the monetary activity of the Institute.
7. Interested Unit
A unit will be considered as an interested unit, if it has at least two staff members with an appointment at the Institute, and they are conducting their main research in the framework of the Institute. The interested units and the institute will work in cooperation by transferring equipment and by prioritizing the utilization of new equipment in order to avoid duplications in activities and to ensure a full utilization of resources.
In case of shared facilities of the Institute and the interested units, priority will be given to teaching needs over research needs.
8. This Institute is established in an attempt to increase and deepen the basic and useful research in the fields of transportation at the Technion. The Head of Institute will submit an annual activity and progress report in the first three years, which will be discussed at the development committee with the participation of the Vice President for Research.
After three years the success of the task will be examined and it will be determined whether the Institute will continue to exist, and in case it will, in which form.