BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY | THE WAY FORWARD

provides financial support for South African students pursuing a four-year MD degree at the Sagol Medical School for International Health. The Minrav Group Scholarship Fund in Memory of Avraham Kozinski is designated for civil and environmental engineering students. The Waldman Family Scholarship Fund supports students who transferred from or are alumni of Sapir College. The Dr. Itsick Levy Endowment Fund for Israelis of Ethiopian Origin in the Health Sciences will provide scholarships to FOHS students in perpetuity. The Heartbeat of Education initiative provides scholarships to all second-year students in BGU’s undergraduate degree program in emergency medicine (B.EMS), empowering Israel’s first responders. POSTGRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS Research students and postdoctoral researchers serve as the backbone of all major research universities. Israel is a small country, and the pool of scholars is limited. BGU faces intense competition from other academic institutions (in Israel and abroad) for the best and the brightest. Merit-based fellowships are a crucial tool in attracting top candidates to BGU, and the University strives to both increase the number of research students and provide fellowships to as many promising young researchers as possible. Support from our global donor family has enabled this, allowing those with the aspirations, qualifications, and motivation to pursue an advanced degree to do so, advancing research in diverse domains, and building expertise and leadership for the Israeli economy. Since 2020, several new fellowship programs have been established, alongside outstanding ongoing fellowship programs, and we are pleased to introduce a few of them below. The Batya and Yehezkel Sieratzki z”l Scholarship of Excellence supports four master’s degree fellowships per year at the BIDR. The Bedouin Managerial Leadership Training Program at the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management addresses the

underrepresentation of Bedouin men and women in management positions and MBA degree programs, providing tuition support and mentoring. The Graduate Fellowship Program in Computer and Information Science aims to attract and support outstanding master’s and doctoral students conducting advanced research in fields such as AI, cybersecurity, and related disciplines, strengthening Israel’s academic and technological ecosystem. The Master’s in Nursing Fellowship Program awards fellowships to research students in the Department of Nursing pursuing master’s degrees. The Neubauer Doctoral Fellowship Program for Arab students in STEM fields creates a pipeline of outstanding STEM leadership for industry and academia from a community underrepresented in these important domains. CENTER FOR PRE-ACADEMIC STUDIES The Center for Pre-Academic Studies at BGU serves as a bridge to academia, opening the doors of higher education widely and providing a steppingstone to university for those in need of remedial studies or a boost in specific areas to meet admission requirements. The center offers year-long preparatory programs aimed at providing prospective students with the necessary educational enrichment to gain acceptance to their chosen degree programs and the tools needed to succeed in academia. Without the opportunity to participate in such programs, higher education remains off limits for many young people, including new immigrants who may lack the required Hebrew language skills and young adults from the Bedouin community who may have a weak educational background or limited Hebrew. The demands of higher education are great, and for many promising prospective students, the difference between success in academia and disappointment depends on intensive preparation for university. In the first semester of the 2025-26 academic year, over 1,000 students participated in BGU’s preparatory programs, and donors around the world have partnered with us to ensure that these avenues to academia are open to new immigrants and Bedouin young adults.

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