Initiative Brings Brightest Minds to Israel
What if you could play matchmaker with the world’s most brilliant people – in a purely academic way, of course? Well, the Azrieli Fellows Program team is doing just that.
“Brilliant postdoctoral candidates empower Israel’s ecosystem,” says Aviad Stollman, Global Director of the Azrieli Fellows Program, which creates an international network of academics committed to raising Israel’s profile. “Israel sends its exceptional postdocs to other nations – enhancing its global scholarly influence. However, the nation grapples with the challenge of enticing a similar calibre of researchers from around the world to contribute to its own laboratories.”
Aiming to boost Israel’s research production, the Azrieli Fellows Program created an initiative called “Postdoc in Israel” to attract postdoctoral researchers and pair them with academic supervisors.
“Many people don’t know that Israel offers unparalleled opportunities in research and science,” says Stollman. “In creating this campaign, we knew we could bring the brightest minds to the country and receive the best candidates.”
Launched in February 2022, the “Postdoc in Israel” campaign features a new website that includes a fellowship database with all funding opportunities in Israel and a supervisor database with hundreds of academics searching for postdoctoral researchers. It also has a comprehensive guide to help postdocs adjust to everyday life in Israel – from assistance with banking to housing.
“Through resources, contacts and exposure, the Azrieli Foundation has forever changed my own scientific career,” says Juan Pablo Unfried of Costa Rica who is currently an Azrieli International Postdoctoral Fellow at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. “With this initiative, the Foundation is bringing many more young researchers from all over the world together – and helping to find solutions for real-world issues through collaborative and innovative science.”
