Ben-Gurion University's Goldman Sonnenfeldt School of Sustainability and Climate Change has become a global hub for dryland climate research during its first five years, even as the war has diverted international budgets and left some partners hesitant to visit or work with Israeli institutions.
Each year, the school sends a delegation to the United Nations' climate conference, trains government officials from several countries, broadcasts live from the climate summit to roughly 5,000 Israeli high school students, and awards tens of thousands of dollars in literary prizes to authors writing about climate. It’s a sprawling operation, built around a deliberate effort to put Israeli climate expertise at the center of global work to address dryland desertification and environmental degradation.
Prof. Shimon Rachmilevitch, the school’s head, said its wide range of programs reflects its aim to respond to climate change across many sectors. “The name is ‘school,’ but in truth it’s much more than that,” he said. Ben-Gurion has spent five decades researching drylands, a field in which the university has long ranked among the world’s leaders. Five years ago, the university brought that expertise together around an interdisciplinary mission.
A Network of Researchers Across Disciplines
More than 190 researchers make up the school’s network, working across engineering, medicine, literature, social work, agriculture, energy, water studies and geography on dryland challenges. Rachmilevitch, trained as a plant scientist, pointed to his team’s work on sweet potatoes and their roots, which he called agriculture’s “hidden herb.” His team has found ways to raise yields by at least 50%. Researchers are also trying to make the crop easier to harvest, improve its nutritional profile, study who has eaten it historically, and turn their findings into practical applications and policy recommendations.
Medical researchers, food anthropologists and policy experts all take part in the sweet potato initiative. It’s a concrete example of what Rachmilevitch meant when he said: “In order to tackle these topics – climate, desertification, sustainability – we must work in an interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary, manner. Only when you work together can you really get answers.”
Other projects aim to reshape the gut microbiome of dairy cattle, cutting emissions of methane—a major greenhouse gas—by as much as 20% to 30%. In another project, researchers turn urine into fertilizer to address water and nitrogen scarcity, the two limiting factors for agriculture in dry regions, Rachmilevitch said. The school invests over NIS 1 million each year in postgraduate scholarships. It has also launched a bachelor's degree in sustainability, which students can pair as a double major with subjects ranging from physics to archaeology.
Building International Partnerships Despite Political Headwinds
Ben-Gurion is the only university that sends a committee to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP) each year and broadcasts live from the summit to Israeli high school students. That work led BGU to create the annual Youth Climate Conference in 2025 with the Education Ministry. Each year, the conference selects 40 schools to present sustainability projects. BGU mentors the students before they present their projects to the president of Israel at his climate forum.
The school’s National Institute for Climate and Environmental Policy works with Jordan, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Cyprus. The school’s high school climate conference model has also reached Kenya, while Malawi is under consideration. “We still haven’t given up hope” on cooperation with Israel’s Arab neighbors, Rachmilevitch said, pointing to partnerships with Jordan and the PA.
The partnerships face growing obstacles. Rachmilevitch said international collaboration has become harder because the war has diverted budgets and some partners have grown more hesitant to work with or visit Israel. “As an academic, this is what we do all the time,” he said. “We always submit grants, and for most of them we get rejections.” He said BGU’s academic credibility helps it keep attracting partners despite the political climate. “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.
BGU works with the Health Ministry and the Heschel Center for Sustainability to train senior officials in climate management, including by sending participants to Europe to study international models. The university has also launched a public climate-data platform, ipcc.bgu.ac.il, where interactive graphs track temperature, wildfire activity and other climate indicators. At BGU’s Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, the professor who serves as Israel’s official point of contact to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is based. Alongside the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the school leads Israel’s delegation to related international conferences, including one in Mongolia in August.
A Vision for Global Relevance
Rachmilevitch said he expects that “in just a few years, every company, every institution will have a sustainability office, and a head of sustainability.” Large high-tech companies already have such offices, he said, naming IBM and Microsoft and saying both have sustainability departments.
A donation from Michael Sonnenfeldt helped drive much of the school’s growth. He committed $1 million annually for 20 years, helping the school attract additional government and international investment. “Money brings money when people see that things are happening,” Rachmilevitch said. “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 said the university’s dryland research offers a preview of challenges that could become global. “Because of the research we are doing today, when desertification and climate change become an imminent challenge, we will be ready. We are preparing here now for what may happen in France in 10 years,” he said.
Why This Matters:
Climate change remains a rare arena for active Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab cooperation, despite wider political ruptures. The Goldman Sonnenfeldt School’s partnerships with the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, its export of climate models to Africa, and its role as Israel’s official voice in UN environmental forums form fragile bridges, built on shared scientific interests and urgent environmental needs. But those collaborations face pressure. When wars divert budgets and international hesitation grows, cooperative problem-solving becomes harder, and efforts to address desertification, water scarcity and climate adaptation suffer along with diplomatic relationships. The school’s continued international research amid political isolation shows how academic institutions can keep channels of cooperation open. It also exposes the cost: these collaborations rely on reputation and resilience, not policy commitment or structural support.