When a desert university thinks globally

“The name is ‘school,’ but in truth it’s much more than that,” he says.

It was built on the foundation of BGU’s five decades of research into dryland environments – a field in which the university has long been considered a world leader. What changed five years ago was the decision to organize that expertise around a single, interdisciplinary mission.

The school’s defining feature is its refusal to let separate disciplines simply work in isolation. Its network of more than 190 researchers spans engineering, medicine, literature, social work, agriculture, energy, water studies, and geography – all directed at dryland challenges.

Rachmilevitch, a plant scientist by training, points to his own work on sweet potatoes and their roots – what he calls the “hidden herb” of agriculture – as a case study in how the model functions in practice. His team has found ways to raise yields by at least 50%.

But increasing production is only part of the equation. The team also needs to make the crop easier to harvest, improve its nutritional profile, and understand who has historically eaten it. It must then turn those findings into practical applications and policy recommendations.

Medical researchers, food anthropologists, and policy experts are all involved in the process.

The same cross-disciplinary approach drives the school’s environmental research. One project focuses on reshaping the gut microbiome of dairy cattle to cut methane emissions, a major greenhouse gas, by as much as 20% to 30%. Another converts urine into fertilizer, addressing water and nitrogen scarcity – the two limiting factors for agriculture in dry regions, Rachmilevitch notes.

To sustain this work, the school invests over NIS 1 million annually in scholarships for postgraduate students studying these issues. It has also launched a new bachelor’s degree in sustainability, which students can pair as a double major with fields ranging from physics to archaeology.

For Rachmilevitch, educating those students is part of a much larger effort to bring climate concerns to the business world and beyond. “The vision I see… In just a few years, every company, every institution will have a sustainability office, and a head of sustainability.”

The trend is already visible.

“Already today, big hi-tech companies have sustainability offices. The biggest companies, IBM, Microsoft, they all have sustainability departments.”

BGU’s Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research hosts the professor who serves as Israel’s official point of contact to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Alongside the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the school leads the Israeli delegation to related international conferences, including one which took place in Mongolia in August. Its biennial Drylands, Deserts and Desertification (DDD) conference, run jointly with UNCCD, draws roughly 1,000 participants from around the world.

“All Israel is one dryland,” Rachmilevitch notes, explaining that the classification is based on the relationship between water entering and leaving an area. Globally, drylands account for roughly 45% of Earth’s land surface.

That gives BGU’s work relevance far beyond the Negev. The school’s National Institute for Climate and Environmental Policy maintains working relationships with Jordan, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and Cyprus. Its high school climate conference model has already been exported to Kenya, with Malawi under consideration.

Rachmilevitch views these international relationships as part of a broader, vital effort to make dryland expertise available across the region and beyond. “We still haven’t given up hope” on cooperation with Israel’s Arab neighbors, he says, citing the partnerships with Jordan and the PA as reasons for optimism.

Much of the school’s growth traces back to a pivotal donation from Michael Sonnenfeldt, who committed $1 million annually for 20 years – funding that helped catalyze further government and international investment.

“Money brings money when people see that things are happening,” Rachmilevitch says. “The government even starts to invest. The Kenyan government starts to invest. When they see there is some seriousness behind it, they are willing to help it grow.”

Rachmilevitch has plenty of reasons for optimism for the future of climate research at BGU and beyond. “The climate projects I’m excited about. The youth conference I’m excited about. Kenya I’m excited about,” he says, also mentioning the new bachelor’s program in sustainability.

None of this has come without friction. Rachmilevitch acknowledges that international collaborations have become more difficult, as the war has diverted budgets and some international partners have become more hesitant to collaborate with or visit Israel.

But setbacks are hardly unfamiliar territory in academia. “

As an academic, this is what we do all the time,” he says. “We always submit grants, and for most of them we get rejections.”

The difference, he argues, is that BGU has accumulated enough academic credibility to keep attracting partners, even amid a complex political environment.

“I feel that we have established a significant reputation as an academic institution, so it lowers the effect” of the political situation on BGU’s international efforts.