For example, the German Excellence Cluster approach gives additional resources to excellent research concepts in academic fields and the Austrian Comet Programme establishes and funds research fields that are related to regional clusters (with a strong focus on university-industry cooperation). Within Israel, the Grand Technion Energy Program (http://ten.technion.ac.il/) provides another example of such an interdisciplinary research programme and branding strategy. Moreover, establishing international research linkages is an additional way of strengthening the inter-disciplinary research, where relevant specialisations do not exist already within the region. A programme is therefore recommended to strengthen the existing global links of Negev research institutes in a systematic way.