The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Background
As early as 1957, students at Freie Universität, together with the Rector at the time, sent a letter to the President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with the aim of paving the way for academic cooperation between the two universities. They proposed a student exchange and dialogue that would "incomparably enrich" the work at their university. In 1986, the universities became partner universities through a student exchange agreement. Since 2011, the two universities have been linked through a strategic partnership, which seeks to foster synergies in research, teaching and administration and supports joint initiatives. The strategic partnership raised cooperation to a new level and has served as a model for the development of further strategic partnerships. Currently, more than 100 scientists from all disciplines are active in joint research and teaching projects with colleagues in Jerusalem.
Highlights
A special focus lies on cooperation in the joint promotion of young researchers. In February 2015, the first German-Israeli agreement on awarding Joint PhDs was signed. The agreement enables doctoral students to acquire a joint PhD through the supervision of professors in Berlin and Jerusalem and after research stays at both universities. The mobility of doctoral students has been supported by the Ludwig Armbruster Fellowship, which, thanks to the generous support of Zoologischer Garten Berlin AG, allowed doctoral students from the Hebrew University to spend up to twelve months at Freie Universität in selected disciplines. Between 2014 and 2019, the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Berlin Einstein Foundation funded an International Research Training Group at Freie Universität Berlin that investigated challenges faced in the realization of human rights. The group named “Human Rights under Pressure – Ethics, Law and Politics” has been set up in cooperation with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was the first German-Israeli doctoral program to receive funding from the DFG.
The strength of the strategic partnership between Freie Universität Berlin and the Hebrew University is also reflected in the many scientific cooperations that extend across all faculties and are supported, for example, by the funding formats of the German-Israeli Foundation and the Einstein Foundation, in the regular exchange at the management level, and in the many students who spend their year abroad in Berlin and Jerusalem as part of the student exchange program.
Funding Opportunities
Partnership Coordinator
Nora Jacobs, Center for International Cooperation, Tel.: +49 30 838 73949, Email: nora.jacobs@fu-berlin.de