Rebuilding the Negev: BGU Campus Expansion
Rebuilding the Negev: BGU Campus Expansion
May 22, 2025
Current events, Negev Development & Community Programs
Construction of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s North Campus.
The Times of Israel – In the wake of the devastation of October 7, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) is expanding its critical role in the regeneration of the Negev.
“Ben-Gurion University has a lot to offer the Negev in its time of need,” says BGU President Prof. Daniel Chamovitz, “As a fifth wave university, we’re not waiting around for anyone to come to us. We have been visiting all the communities in the Negev, assessing their current and future needs, and figuring out how BGU’s faculty, students and innovation ecosystem can help them flourish. Fifth wave universities see themselves with an additional mandate beyond research and teaching: we are committed to developing the region where we are based. We are focused on both its economic capital and its human capital.”
To that end, BGU will double its campus in Beer-Sheva and create new faculties and schools to meet real and anticipated growing demand for its educational opportunities.
Building on its proven paradigm-shifting medical education, BGU continues to set the standard for training of healthcare professionals. Medical students, paramedics, doctors, nurses, and IDF soldiers about to be deployed to the front lines, can simulate real situations and train on lifelike high-tech dummies at the state-of-the-art Field Family Medical Simulation Center.
In anticipation of an influx of elite soldiers as the IDF technology and intelligence branches move to the Negev, the University Senate recently approved a new Faculty of Computer Science, and two state-of-the-art buildings are under construction on its North Campus to meet the expected student body growth.
Keenly cognizant of the Negev’s need after October 7, the University has looked beyond the boundaries of campus to launch an ambitious initiative.
Led by Prof. Miki Malul, former Dean of the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management, this initiative seeks to harness the University’s resources and pioneering spirit, alongside its extensive existing partnerships, to advance the region economically, socially, and culturally. A recent survey of perceptions of the Negev’s key institutions placed BGU highest both in terms of its impact and in terms of the pride it instills in Negev residents.
The effort will be collaborative from beginning to end and extend far beyond the campus gates. At the heart of the initiative is the establishment of a social innovation incubator at the University, where academic knowledge can be linked to on-the-ground practice by bringing together researchers, students, and local practitioners for mutual learning and collaboration. The incubator will serve as a hub where real-world challenges from across the Negev are brought in, and interdisciplinary teams of students and researchers collaborate with stakeholders to develop innovative, actionable solutions to these challenges.
“We are now at the outset of what will be a long journey,” says Malul, “but the overarching idea is leverage. How we as a university can leverage the Negev’s strengths and enable it to realize its potential.”
Read more on The Times of Israel>>
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