Ben Gurion University of the Negev is a public research university located in Beersheba, Israel. Founded in 1969, BGU is Israel’s third-largest university with over 20,000 students.
BGU’s main campus spans over 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) in the heart of the Negev desert and includes state-of-the-art facilities such as a nanotechnology center, experimental greenhouse, and an astronomical observatory. The University offers 97 undergraduate programs and 188 graduate programs in a wide range of disciplines including engineering, medicine, natural sciences, agriculture, humanities and social sciences.
BGU is consistently ranked among the world’s top 100 universities for environmental science and desert studies. It is also home to leading research centers in a variety of fields including solar energy, water desalination, cybersecurity, biomedicine and more. In 2019, BGU was ranked #1 in Israel for employability according to the Times Higher Education global survey.
BGU has produced numerous Nobel Prize laureates including Shimon Peres (1994), Dan Shechtman (2011), and Aaron Ciechanover (2004). The University is named after David Ben-Gurion – Israel’s first Prime Minister – who believed that developing the Negev Desert was essential to the country’s future. Today BGU carries on Ben-Gurion’s legacy by working to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems through cutting-edge research and innovation.