Academic Sector

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

The United States-Israel Educational Foundation and the Technion co-fund the Fulbright-Technion Fellowship for visiting American senior scholars.

 

In 1924 the doors of a small Jewish technical university opened to train young men and women in the Middle East in engineering. This triggered a magnificent and historic chain reaction. The doors were also opened on that day to the nascent Israel’s first and strategically most important center of advanced learning. This in turn opened the door to the founding of a modern state.

 
Technion is home to Israel’s first Nobel laureates in science, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine Profs. Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover are recipients of the 2004 Nobel prize in Chemistry. Prof. Ciechanover is himself a Fulbright alumnus.

 

Technion’s main campus is a 300-acre city of advanced research and learning. Technion is Israel’s biggest scientific-technological university and one of the largest centers of applied research in the world. Approximately 13,000 students learn in 18 faculties (Aerospace Engineering, Architecture and Town Planning, Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Biotechnology and Food Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, Education in Technology and Science, Electrical Engineering, Humanities and Arts, Industrial Engineering and Management, Mathematics, Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Medicine, and Physics),  that offer 52 undergraduate and 67 graduate programs.

 

The Technion’s faculty members are trained both in Israel and abroad, maintaining active international collaboration and the highest standards of excellence in research and publications. The institute attracts gifted young researchers from leading universities throughout the world.

 

The Technion’s more than 80,000 graduates comprise approximately 70 percent of Israeli-educated engineers, and have created Israel’s industrial infrastructure, reinforced its defense capabilities and pioneered its technology-based enterprises.

 

Scores of international companies such as Intel and Google have been drawn to Israel to recruit quality Technion graduates and collaborate with Technion. Research agreements with academic institutions around the world include Johns Hopkins University, l’Ecole Polytechnique, Cambridge University, National University of Singapore, the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney, the Technological Universities of Berlin and Aachen, Tsinghua University, Xidian University and the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The Technion hosts undergraduate and graduate students on campus from 35 countries around the world, and encourages its own students to study abroad as part of its student exchange program.

 

Website: www.technion.ac.il 

American Technion Society

The United States-Israel Educational Foundation and the American Technion Society co-fund the Fulbright-American Technion Society Fellowship for visiting American post-doctoral researchers.

 

The American Technion Society (ATS), a national nonprofit organization, is the leading supporter of science and technology higher education in Israel.  Since its founding in 1940, the ATS has raised some $1.4 billion for the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel’s oldest institution of higher learning and one of the world’s foremost science and technology universities.

 

Responding quickly to the Technion’s most pressing needs, ATS fundraising has been instrumental in key areas such as:

• providing student support in the form of undergraduate scholarships and graduate and postdoctoral fellowships;
• recruiting both accomplished veteran professors and promising young faculty members;
• supporting research programs whose findings may have broad, life-altering implications;
• expanding on-campus dormitory space for the graduate student body; and
• strengthening faculties by upgrading, renovating, and building academic and research facilities.

ATS fundraising campaigns are multi-year efforts. A six-year campaign initiated in 1990—with the goal of raising $250 million by 1996—surpassed expectations, achieving an actual pledge total of $263.6 million. In its 1997–99 campaign, the ATS sought $175 million and was able to reach that goal nine months early. Building on this achievement, the ATS is now pursuing a rolled-out $1 billion campaign, “Shaping Israel’s Future,” through which $903.8 million has been raised from Oct. 1, 1996, through October 31, 2008.

 

ATS donors have played an invaluable role in the Technion’s development—from building the beautiful 300-acre campus in Haifa, to the university’s emergence as a topnotch academic and research center.

 

With thousands of members and 22 offices throughout the United States, the ATS is driven by the belief that the future of Israel is in high technology, and the future of high technology in Israel is at the Technion.

 

Website: www.ats.org   

University of Haifa

The United States-Israel Educational Foundation and the University of Haifa co-fund the Fulbright-University of Haifa Fellowship for visiting American senior scholars.

 

The University of Haifa was founded in 1962 and has become one of Israel's leading research universities.  Located in Northern Israel, situated on the top of Mount Carmel and adjoining the Carmel National Park, Israel's largest forest, the University of Haifa sits on the edge of the city of Haifa.

 

The University of Haifa is a microcosm of Israeli society. A pluralistic student body of 17,000 undergraduate and graduate students study together in an atmosphere of coexistence, tolerance and mutual respect. The University houses cutting-edge research facilities and interdisciplinary research centers in six faculties: Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences and Science Education, Law, Social Welfare and Health Sciences, and Education.

 

The University considers the link-up between academic excellence and social responsibility as its flagship, and service to the community as one of its important goals. The students and faculty come together on the University campus on Mount Carmel in joint intellectual pursuits, and have made the University of Haifa an international leader in many fields of research. The University is integrated into the larger academic community through student and faculty exchange and research agreements with universities around the world.

 

Website: www.haifa.ac.il

Tel Aviv University

The United States-Israel Educational Foundation and Tel Aviv University co-fund the Fulbright-Tel Aviv University Fellowship for visiting American senior scholars.

 

Tel Aviv University (TAU) was established in 1956 with a student population of 130 and three buildings. Today it has evolved into Israel’s largest, most comprehensive and most dynamic institution of higher learning, with 28,000 students, 1,100 senior faculty, 125 schools and departments, over 130 research institutes and a 200-acre campus.

 

TAU offers an extensive range of study programs in both traditional and emerging fields, and maintains international scientific ties with over 100 leading institutions, ranging from the NIH, NASA and Harvard to CERN, the Sorbonne and Tokyo University.

 

At TAU, “multidisciplinary” is not a buzzword, but rather a core value of the academic culture. The breadth of expertise – combined with the university’s location in Tel Aviv, nerve center of Israeli industry, business and culture – creates ideal conditions for cross-disciplinary research that touches on all aspects of life.

 

Possibilities for academic creativity are infinite. Biblical archeologists are working with nano material scientists; neurologists with management researchers; and East Asian philosophy experts with scholars of Jewish studies. Altogether, TAU researchers advance about 3,000 projects annually in nine faculties: engineering, exact sciences, life sciences, medicine, humanities, law, social sciences, arts and management

 

TAU teams publish rigorous, widely-cited studies that redefine and expand classic areas such as law, economics and management, as well as drive forward new fields such as stem cells, biophysics, bioinformatics, nanotechnology and renewable energy. Scientists are teaming up with pharmaceutical companies like Johnson & Johnson to develop new drugs and medical technologies. TAU also runs Israel’s largest medical research framework with 1,400 scientist-clinicians at 17 affiliated hospitals serving over two million people.

 

Outstanding young people from Israel and abroad are drawn to TAU’s multidisciplinary teaching frameworks – such as in biomedicine and environmental studies – as well as to international programs run in cooperation with Berkeley, Kellogg School of Management, INSEAD and other top schools. Fully 40 percent of TAU’s students are pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees.

 

TAU’s culture of social involvement is reflected in every activity of the campus, feeding off – and strengthening – the needs of Israeli society. In particular, TAU is leading a nation-wide revolution in making university studies accessible. Through its many scholarship programs, TAU brings disadvantaged, minority and new immigrant youth to the university, provides them with mentors and financial aid, and gives them every chance to succeed and inspire others.

 

Website: www.tau.ac.il

Bar-Ilan University

The United States-Israel Educational Foundation and Bar-Ilan University co-fund the Fulbright - Bar-Ilan University Fellowship for visiting American senior scholars.

 

Bar-Ilan University is the second largest university in Israel, with a student population of approximately 24,500 at the main campus in Ramat Gan, and at the four regional colleges operating under its auspices – in the Jordan Valley, in Safed, in the western Galilee and in Ashkelon.

 

The university regards the sacred principles of Judaism as the manifestation of the Jewish people's uniqueness, in accordance with the principles defined upon its establishment. The university's basic roles include supporting the safeguarding of these principles out of love and with the purpose of training and producing scholars, researchers and men of science knowledgeable in the Torah and imbued with the original Jewish spirit and love of one's brethren.

 

The university cultivates and combines Jewish identity and tradition with modern technologies and research. Instilling the fundamentals of Jewish heritage through basic Jewish studies, the Jesselson Institute for Advanced Torah Studiesand other activities, while offering high-level academic studies and the development of advanced research within the framework of faculties, departments and research centers, renders the university unique.

 

Aiming to excel in research, in recent years Bar-Ilan University has placed major emphasis on expanding its research activities and advanced studies, by substantially increasing the number of research students via Presidential and other scholarships. The university has also developed unique interdisciplinary study programs and has intensified research and instruction in fields that are at the forefront of sciences, such as computational biology, biotechnology, nanotechnology and more.

 

The 24,500 students registered at the university and its colleges, hailing from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, study together harmoniously in classrooms, laboratories and libraries, and thus Bar-Ilan University contributes to tolerance and coexistence between religious and secular, and Arab and Jewish students.

 

Since it inception, Bar-Ilan University has been aware of the complexity of Israeli society and its fundamental difficulties, and has taken steps to strengthen its involvement in the community by establishing branches (which, over the years, have become colleges) throughout the country. The university has thus brought academia to the periphery, and has supplied psychological and legal services to populations in need by granting scholarships to underprivileged students, by opening study programs for Bachelor's degrees, for the religious Orthodox community and more.

 

With the help of its friends and supporters worldwide, the university continues to serve as a "beacon of light", as pledged in its founding charter, and opens its gates to applicants from Israel and around the globe.

 

Approximately 88,000 Bar-Ilan University alumni hold key positions in society, as well as in the public domain, in leading economic and security sectors, infusing the spirit of Jewish values, Jewish morals, intellectual values, ideological moderation and commitment to the community, which they have acquired at the university – in their respective domains and areas of activity.

 

Bar-Ilan University: a unique community of scientists who conduct themselves in accordance with the Jewish tradition, investing their energy and efforts into the integration of the old with the new, the ancient with the modern, the sacred with the mundane, the spiritual with the scientific.

Website: www.biu.ac.il 

Ben-Gurion University

The United States-Israel Educational Foundation and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev co-fund the Fulbright - Ben-Gurion University Fellowship for visiting American senior scholars.

 

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev was established in 1969 with the aim to bring development to the Negev, a desert area comprising more than sixty percent of the country. It was inspired by the vision of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, who believed that the future of the country lay in this region.

 

Today, Ben-Gurion University is a major center for teaching and research, with campuses in Beer-Sheva, including the Marcus Family Campus, as well as in Eilat and Sede Boqer, where Ben-Gurion lived in his final years and is buried. More than 17,000 students are enrolled in the Faculties of Engineering Sciences, Health Sciences, Natural Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences, the Guilford Glazer School of Business and Management and the Kreitman School of Advanced Graduate Studies. Close to one third of the students are graduate students or candidates for Ph.D. degrees. The University also includes the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev, the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, the Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies and the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism. New, interdisciplinary degree programs are redefining the boundaries between the Faculties and attracting outstanding students from Israel and abroad. Its world-famous Joyce and Irving Goldman Medical School has become a model for community-oriented and global medicine.

 

In keeping with its mandate, Ben-Gurion University plays a key role in promoting industry, agriculture and education in the Negev. University-sponsored community colleges and pre-academic and continuing education programs make learning accessible to greater numbers of Negev residents, while community action programs involving over half of the student body benefit the various communities in the region.

The University is outstanding in other fields as well. BGU is the venue for a 2008 joint BGU-NATO conference: “NATO in the 21st Century and the Mediterranean Dialogue”. The Economics Department was recently rated among the top ten in economic research in Europe. The Faculty of Health Sciences offers the English-language Medical School for International Health in collaboration with Columbia University Medical Center. “B.G. Negev Technologies,” the University's technology transfer company, serves as the link between academic research and industry, facilitating the transfer of University-developed know-how and inventions into commercially viable products.

 

BGU is part of the global community, with researchers sharing internationally their expertise in such fields as hi-tech, bio-tech, medicine, arid zone agriculture, solar energy, water resource management, nanotechnology and more. The University anticipates exciting challenges in innovative fields of research and hopes to bring new opportunities to Beer-Sheva and the Negev while continuing its pursuit of academic excellence and expanding its contribution to the community.

 

Website: www.bgu.ac.il

Hadassah-Brandeis Institute

The United States-Israel Educational Foundation and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute co-fund the Fulbright - Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship in Women's Studies for Israeli doctoral candidates.

 

The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute (HBI) is an international research center at Brandeis University. The world's only academic center of its kind, the HBI develops fresh ways of thinking about Jews and gender by producing and promoting scholarly research and artistic projects.

 

The Institute carries out this mission through publications (Nashim, 614: The HBI eZine, and the HBI Series on Jewish Women), its Scholar-in-Residence and Research Awards programs, and the Lily Safra Internship. In addition, the Institute is home to the HBI Project on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law, whose mission is to foster creative approaches to negotiating the tension between women's equality and practices justified in terms of cultural and religious traditions.

 

Website: www.brandeis.edu/hbi

 

Back To Top