On 1995, The Ministry of Science and Technology has initiated, via a steering committee it has established, a support program for the development of scientific technological infrastructures.

The Committee defined five fields with a national priority, and in which Israel holds a leading position in the International Knowledge front, and in which it has a relative advantage. These fields are: Electro-optics, Biotechnology, Information and Teleprocessing, Advanced Materials, and Microelectronics. In order to implement these recommendations, national committees for each field were established.

In the framework of the program, the National Committee for Biotechnology has recommended to hold both infrastructural projects and infrastructural laboratories. The principle of the infrastructural laboratories was expanded on a later stage, to the Ministry's other priority fields.

The starting point in regards to the establishment of the infrastructure laboratories was to assimilate and develop technologies which hold a "bottleneck", concerning the promotion of research in Israel, in subjects with the maximum benefit to Israel's economy and welfare. These complex technologies require knowledge, expertise, and special equipment which could be used in a large number of infrastructural research projects.

These infrastructure laboratories were upgraded on 2002, and became "Infrastructural Knowledge Centers". Unique working protocols were established especially for these Knowledge Centers, different from normal research projects.

The Centers are meant to deal with the assimilation of new age advanced technologies. The intention is mainly to deal with advanced and expensive equipment systems which are out of the reach of any single scientific institution, accompanied by an expert crew to operate the equipment and its technological uses.

The objective of the Knowledge Centers is to allow that the most advanced and innovative technologies be accessible equally accessible to the entire researchers community in Israel, in the academy, industry, research institutes, and elsewhere.

The principles characterizing the Infrastructural Knowledge Centers are: Unique in Israel, and leading in its field, imperative to the development of the field, and headed by a senior active scientists who stands in the front line in the field. The center should be based on existing academic infrastructure, in the research institute or industrial facility, and that is providing services to a variety of researchers.

Every Knowledge Center was appointed with a steering committee, comprised of representatives from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the hosting institute, and external experts. The Committee's objective is to provide advice to the Knowledge Center, the Institute and to the Ministry of Science and Technology, in regards to the Knowledge Center. In addition to the scientific and professional accompaniment to the knowledge centers, every steering committee assists the center in formalizing the protocol for its services provision, including a protocol for prioritization, in setting the service rates, and in forming a program for marketing the provided services.