Israel
BGU: innovation and multidisciplinary research
ANT KATZ
It offers a modern campus and a dynamic student population of 20 000 from Israel and around the world. Students go to BGU both for academic opportunities as well as for its famously vibrant campus atmosphere.
Be’er Sheva has what has become one of the world’s most thriving ecosystems of technology, innovation and business collaboration. BGU has managed to do this by virtue of the city having space to grow – a rarity in this “innovation nation”.
The BGU campus thus finds itself at the heart of a fast-developing R&D hub, which includes Soroka University Medical Centre and The Advanced Technologies Park within a one kilometre radius. This has created a robust R&D triangle.
Imagine this scenario: A student has an idea in class or in the lab and takes it across the road to the Advanced Technologies Park and joins a development incubator – and before you know it the student is a start-up!
RIGHT: Then-President Nelson Mandela at the conferment of an Honorary Doctorate on by BGU in 1998. Pictured with Madiba, from left, are: Herby Rosenberg (Chairman: SA Associates of BGU); Prof Avishay Braverman (President of BGU) and Dr Bertie Lubner (then-President: SA Associates and Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of BGU).
BGU’s says its top-notch academic programmes educate tomorrow’s researchers and professionals. A range of interdisciplinary programmes, institutes and centres of excellence, such as their Homeland Security Institute and their ABC Robotics Initiative, bring together researchers from different fields to find innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.
BGU directs students through numerous specialised tracks, such as:
- Entrepreneurship and innovation – This track combines courses from several academic fields as well as practical skills and theory, providing students with useful tools and training them in innovative thinking and entrepreneurship. Participants in this track, who come from all fields of study, develop precious career skills.
- Global health – Students get an inside look at global health, an emerging field that incorporates both theory and social involvement and interweaves disciplines such as medicine, sociology, economics, politics, and ethics. Through guided tours of medical facilities in Israel, students observe emerging aspects of global health first-hand, as well as participate in a field practicum.
- Israel studies – Israel is a modern and progressive country, yet steeped in tradition – a leader in technology and entrepreneurship, yet protective of customs and rituals. In this multidisciplinary track, students work in world-renowned archives, participate in current field research, thus discovering Israel’s dynamic society.
- Sustainable development and environment – As a leader in environmental studies and the sustainable use of limited natural resources in the desert, BGU is the ideal place to explore sustainability and environmental management. This track examines the challenges of sustainable development in the Middle East and their implications in other parts of the world.
BGU has conferred honorary doctorates on four South Africans: Nelson Mandela, Nadine Gordimer, Bertram Lubner and Eric Samson.
Additional information for readers:
- MANDELA GETS DOCTORATE FROM BGU – Story
- BEN-GURION U FULL BROCHURE PDF
- BGU STUDY ABROAD PROGRAMME – PDF
- BGU HEALTH PROGRAMME JUNE 2017 – PDF
- For further information contact Kyra Wainstein of SA Associates of BGU at 076-413-5185 or study@bgu.ac.il
