Chairperson of the Planning and Budgeting Committee, Prof. Yaffa Zilbershats: “The New Campus vision seeks to promote the concept of innovation, create an entrepreneurial culture, and change the face of the academic campus. The goal is to promote vibrant, inspirational, entrepreneurial centers that will encourage students to be active and think innovatively, together with the best researchers the academic institution has to offer. Rapid changes in technology require that academia make the necessary adjustments and integrate the world of innovation and entrepreneurial thought into every academic institution in Israel.”

Over the next five years, approximately NIS 100 million will be invested in promoting the “New Campus”

• Changing the face of the campus – Innovative work environment that encourages creativity and collaboration:
  • Establishing entrepreneurship and innovation centers at institutions of higher education to turn campuses into entrepreneurial ecosystems, a vibrant, bustling work environment that encourages creativity, inspires, and is adapted to the world of innovation.
• “Breaking Down Barriers” – Switch from being a passive student to an active, entrepreneurial trailblazer:
  • An academic campus brings together talented, curious young people who hunger for creativity and knowledge, where they join lecturer-researchers, who are the best minds in many fields. The New Campus will encourage these young people to initiate and promote trailblazing ideas while they are still in school.
• “Breaking Down Barriers” – Multidisciplinary experiences, inter-faculty collaborations:
  • Students from various disciplines will be able to work as a team, and gain experience establishing influential ventures, while brainstorming and collaborating with the best researchers from across the campus. The multidisciplinary teams will be guided by professional mentors from industry.
• The Result: Connecting Israeli academia to the world of innovation with a global outlook:
  • Israel is a country with an entrepreneurial outlook, and a leader in innovation, but until recently academic institutions have not included entrepreneurship and innovation in their goals. The New Campus vision is intended to expose students from all disciplines to the world of entrepreneurship, and make that world accessible while reinforcing researchers’ innovation, similar to parallel projects at the worlds’ leading institutions.

Background of the New Campus Vision:

The role of academia in the 21^st century: The New Campus vision emerges from the assumption that the Israeli system of higher education will look quite different in another decade. Beyond changes in the physical and structural aspects of the campus, the principal change will be one of breaking barriers, as students go from being passive to active, creating cooperation and breaking down barriers between faculties, and strengthening the connections between the academic world and industry.

For many years, traditional activity on campus has been focused on research and teaching. Academic institutions did not consider entrepreneurship and innovation one of their goals. As a result, innovation naturally became the province of industry.

However, accelerating technological change accompanied by the growth of giant information- based corporations, which are establishing their own research centers, require academia to adapt itself as necessary.

• The CHE and the Planning and Budget Committee are launching the New Campus, and the committee is now publishing a public appeal to all budgeted academic institutions

The New Campus vision, as noted, strives to make students more active, and transform academic institutions into a space where they are able to implement trailblazing ideas. Approximately NIS 100 million has been budgeted for this purpose over the next five years.

According to this innovative concept, the campus is a place that brings together talented young people studying a wide range of fields, full of imagination and hungry for creativity and knowledge, and lecturer-researchers who are among the best minds in many fields. Therefore, activity on campus will, in the coming years, become more varied and include entrepreneurial centers where students from different disciplines can work together with researchers, with the assistance of professional mentors, in order to promote significant projects with the potential to influence society. These entrepreneurial centers will take advantage of the campus to create an entrepreneurial eco-system, a vibrant, inspirational and vital work environment that encourages creativity, and adapts to new worlds.

This concept has found a place at many of the world’s best academic institutions including MIT, Columbia, Cambridge, Stanford, Berkeley and more. These institutions, and others like them, are seeking additional purposes for the campus, and want to take advantage of the many resources and brilliant minds they have available in order to turn academic institutions into major hothouses for ideas and enterprises.

The New Campus Model Includes Four Active Components:

1.      Education and training for entrepreneurship and innovation:

Entrepreneurship is becoming a basic skill required of all students and researchers in the 21^st century. It encompasses additional traits such as leadership, responsibility, and a desire to create change in the current reality.

• The training and education component is designed to make the world of entrepreneurship and innovation accessible to interested students and researchers from all faculties. Accessibility will be achieved through exciting, innovative courses and training programs in entrepreneurship that encourage creativity and cooperation.

2.      Entrepreneurship and innovation centers that emphasize practical experience:

Teams that include students and lecturers from different faculties at the institution will be established and work collaboratively to gain practical experience in innovative entrepreneurship with a practical horizon.

• The primary purpose of this component will focus on the process of building a project. Emphasis will be on ideation and validation through exposure to market requirements, the ability to work as a team, and developing skills for communicating with varied audiences. The teams will include basic support services – for the business and/or technology and/or design levels, etc. – in order to facilitate initial feasibility testing for the project.

3.      Creating an entrepreneurial culture on campus:

The entrepreneurial culture on campus is the spirit that motivates action. An entrepreneurial culture is created, inter alia, by building entrepreneurial communities on campus and organizing varied events, including competitions, hackathons, meet-ups, etc. that build shared interests and where students and researchers can meet regularly to share ideas, learn and become better acquainted, in the hope that they will later find partners for their own projects.

4.      Advanced projects – optional:

Academic institutions will also be able to accompany and support high potential enterprises by also focusing on business aspects that include, among other things, assistance with fundraising, developing connections to strategic partners, and more.