July 18, 2019
Dear All,
During this academic year, we have received monthly updates from the Rector’s Office. Naturally, the Rector focuses on activities of academic nature. Former University director-general, Mr. Moshe Vigdor used to say that even the displacing of a tile from one spot to another is considered to be academic activity in the University. With this qualification, I will try to describe in this letter some of our broader activities, some of which more academically oriented than others, but all of which meant to contribute to the long-term development of the University.
HUJITECH:
As discussed on several occasions, we are in the midst of constructing an innovation park in the Edmond J. Safra Campus’ outskirts. The park will include 150,000 square meters of commercial property for companies in advanced industry fields, such as high-tech, bio-tech and nano-tech. The scale of the project is such that we asses that once fully functioning, the park will provide approximately 5000 jobs. This project which is of great economic scale, and it is carried out in cooperation with Jerusalem Development Authority, is expected to improve our academic relationship with advanced industries, improve employment prospects in Jerusalem and produce steady annual revenue for the University. We are currently in the advanced stages of a bid to select the developer, which will build and operate the park. We expect the bid to be completed by the month of September, and the construction of the park to start shortly after. The two first building, out of the four planned, are expected to start operating as soon as 2023.
Big Data:
A growing number of scientific projects around the world utilize big data, and are dependent on both large databases and the ability to make use of them. There are quite a few big data related research projects throughout the University, the overwhelming majority of which are based on bottom-up initiative. Naturally, we encourage such initiatives. However, we believe it is vital to develop big data research, or any research requiring more computing power, in a centralized and organized fashion. Last year, we established a data center, headed by Dafna Shahaf from the School of Computer Sciences and Yuval Binyamini from the Statistics Department in the Faculty of Social Sciences, which focuses on encouraging researches in this topic on various disciplines. We continue this move and in the coming months we will also establish a computing center to include a cluster of computers capable of executing powerful computations and big data analysis. We will also hire professionals to run the center and advise those of us in need of counsel in using big data. The initial location of the center will be in the Computer Sciences School and later it will be relocated to the University’s computing center in the Edmond J. Safra Campus. The center will be built in such a way so as to enable it to provide services to all the University’s Campuses. Simultaneously, we are establishing several research centers based at least in part on big data analysis and powerful computing. A large center for computational medicine is currently being established in the Ein Karem Campus. In the Mt. Scopus Campus, we plan to establish a “Smart Cities” center, and in the Edmond J. Safra, we plan to establish a climate research center. Generally, we are committed to adding to the means of performing researches based on big data and providing professional guidance for projects in the field.
Construction:
There are three different categories relevant to construction. The first category includes new buildings or adding floors to existing buildings (which sometimes entails additional infrastructure for the entire building). Such construction almost always requires approval by the Planning and Budgeting Committee and its funding has to be sourced from an external function, usually a designated donation. On this category, the University’s management prioritizes after discussion with the relevant units. We have obtained funding and are in the planning stages of the following projects: 1) a new building for the teaching laboratories in the Edmond J. Safra Campus 2) adding two floors to the Faculty of Law Building 3) adding a floor to the Faculty of Social Sciences Building. In addition, we are in the advanced stages of obtaining funding for the following projects: 1) constructing a new building for computational medicine in the Ein Karem Campus 2) constructing a new building for the Nano Technology and Quantum Information Centers in the Edmond J. Safra Campus 3) massive renovation of the Archaeology Institute. We are also in the early stages of fundraising for the construction of a fourth building in the Computer Sciences School.
The second category includes the massive renovation of existing buildings. The cost of such a renovation is several millions of shekels. As part of the renewal program signed last year, we established a fund for the financing of projects of such scale. We are already working on the following projects: 1) construction of classrooms and offices in the area used in the past as a cafeteria in the Faculty of Humanities Building. 2) Total renovation of the pilot building in the Edmond J. Safra Campus to be used mostly for the Chemistry Institute’s laboratories. 3) Renovation of two floors in the Faculty of Medicine to be used mostly for laboratories. 4) Renovation of a floor in the Biochemistry building in the Faculty if Agriculture. 5) Soon, we will also start the renovation of a floor in the School of Pharmacology. 6) Constructing new classrooms in the BarAton compound in the Mt. Scopus campus.
The third category include relatively small renovations. Here, too, we devise a list of projects to be executed in the course of the coming year in collaboration with the faculties.
We are all aware that the physical infrastructures of the University are not in good shape due to the lack of adequate resources for many years. Our situation changed as consequence of the renewal agreement signed last year. It is clear we have a long way before we can reach a state that can be regarded as satisfactory.
Computer systems:
The University’s computer systems are also not in good shape and need to be improved upon. We focus on two main “fronts”. The first and immediate front is our budget management system. It is an important initiative that started during the previous administration and is meant to optimize our entire finance system using an ERP system. Such a system exists in any advanced organization in Israel and in the world. Thus, for example, it will allow us to utilize our size in purchasing equipment, a basic trait for a large organization, which is not possible in our old patched-up computer system. We have been working on the new ERP system for almost two years, during which we characterized as accurately as possible all the existing financial systems. We also ran tests and simulations of different types throughout the University in order to best ensure the credibility of the system. We are in the final stages of developing the system, running tests and final adjustments. During September and October of 2019, we will start operating the system. It is a very complex system, therefore, in spite of our efforts to create an accurate system, it is clear that we will have to go through an assimilation period in which we will correct newly detected errors and make additional adjustments. We hope that we will all have the patience for any malfunctions that might occur. In the end of the process, we will be in line with world’s top universities.
The second front is the central computer system for the teachers and students. After much consideration and various (rather unsuccessful) attempts to create such a system ourselves, we have reached the conclusion that it is advisable to purchase such a system. We are in the advanced stages of testing such a system and making adjustments in accordance with the unique needs of our university. The advantage of purchasing a premade system is that the adjustment process for the University is relatively short and we expect that within a year from the system’s purchase it will be assimilated.
In addition, we are currently assessing a central information system for salary and human resources topics. This computer system, third in number, is planned to arrive within two years.
And finally, we started assimilating a customer support system by Salesforce, one of the most advanced in this field, in various units in the University.
Donations:
20 months ago, we started an ambitious fundraising campaign meant to reach an overall sum of a billion dollars over the course of seven years. It should be noted that most of the donations are not meant for regular spending but for projects of research, construction, academic staff recruitment, and scholarships for advanced degrees students. We are assisted by an international company hired for the marketing of the campaign, along with our Friends Organizations in Israel and abroad. So far, we raised 212 million dollars since the start of the campaign. The good news is that it is in a higher pace than past endeavors. The bad news is that it is still a little under our campaign goal. And still, we believe, we will meet our goal.
Finally, I find it important to discuss one particular topic that bothers the University’s management and which I believe should bother us all. This was also expressed in the rector’s last letter. There are many scales for the rating of academic quality and almost all use publications as one of the parameters. In recent years, we have been experiencing consistent decline, albeit moderate, of the Hebrew University in the publications parameters. We are still in the top group in Israel in this field, but less than in the past. The various scales examine different sides of the publications (with emphasis on impact and without it, with publications in other languages compared to English, etc.) and all paint the same picture of decrease in the amount of publications. In this context, it is important to note several points: 1) Publications are only one component of academic quality. There are disciplines in which publications are not a central outlet. We do not ignore other components of academic quality. For example, we definitely encourage the publishing of books in fields where books constitute of a primary mean to distribute knowledge. 2) Purely technical measurement never provides the full picture of the academic activity and its impact. 3) It is clear to us that the majority of staff members do their best. And still, one cannot ignore the fact that the University’s publications are decreasing in comparison with the universities we perceive as best in academic quality. We therefore conclude that this is a real phenomenon.
As previously mentioned, we know that the majority of the staff members are already doing their best and in many cases it is a lot. Having said that, we believe that we should reinstate the importance of publications and in general, improve the output of publications in the University. The rector instructed the deans to have every unit publicize on its website and in other places the publications of the staff members periodically. By this, we mean to strengthen the publication “culture” in the University. In addition, we plan to have publications be one of the components determining the units’ budget. We will also examine additional measures, all in collaboration with the deans of the faculties and schools.
There are many other matters one could discuss (a new career center we started, our entrepreneurship center, etc.), but this letter is already long enough. We are at the start of summer, so I wish us all a pleasant summer to equip us with positive energy in preparation for the new academic year.
All the best,
Asher Cohen