New York Campus Signals Israeli University’s Global Ambitions

Written by David Rosenberg. Joint campus with Cornell near Manhattan will raise The Technion’s profile.
New York City’s Roosevelt Island is half a world away from the Technion’s home on Mount Carmel. But that is exactly the point, says Oded Shmueli, vice president for research, explaining why the Israeli university is embarking on an ambitious multi-billion-dollar joint venture with Cornell to build a  new technology  institute of higher education in New York. New York City will benefit from the new university, drawing high tech businesses, and creating new jobs and new companies. But the Technion, also known as the Israel Institute of Technology, will benefit too by raising its profile in the scientific world and attracting new human and financial resources.
“If you look at science and technology today, it’s no longer a local affair. Our scientists cooperate with scientists worldwide,” Shmueli told The Media Line.
Shmueli was speaking a day after the city announced the two universities had won a heated competition to build the campus on a small island off Manhattan. Their joint proposal calls for spending $2 billion to build a campus of 2,500 students and 280 faculty with the aim of not just conducting research and teaching but acting as an incubator of high tech start-ups. The plan includes a $150 million revolving to fund to get them off the ground.
“Thanks to this outstanding partnership and groundbreaking proposal from Cornell and the Technion, New York City's goal of becoming the global leader in technological innovation is now within sight," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday. “By adding a new state-of-the-art institution to our landscape, we will educate tomorrow's entrepreneurs and create the jobs of the future.”
Although it is the world financial capital, New York has been a laggard in luring technology companies. It only recently overtook Boston for attracting venture capital for start-ups and Bloomberg has bemoaned the shortage of engineers in the city. The new institution, when fully up and running will increase the number of locally trained graduates in engineering by 70%.
The Technion has had a successful history of morphing its academic research into commercial technology and in the process attracting technology start-ups and multinational R&D operations into its orbit. Its Alfred Mann Institute, set up four years ago, is dedicated to creating practical applications for medical-technology research. The Cornell-Technion partnership was formed only a few months ago after the two institutions filed separate expressions of interest in the campus New York wanted to develop. The two institutions had no formal ties beforehand.
“It will be a good match, based on history, based on complementary assets,” said Shmueli, who is a computer scientist by training. “We understood we couldn’t do it ourselves.”
 The partnership was up against stiff competition, although one major contender – Stanford University – dropped out at the last minute. That left the two vying with Columbia University and groups led by Carnegie Mellon University and New York University. The Cornell-Technion bid was given an 11th-hour boost by a gift of $350 million to Cornell for the venture.
The two universities are both well respected academically. Cornell, based in the Upstate New York town of Ithaca ranked 13th among 500 in last year’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, which rates institutions of higher education based on the number alumni and staff winning Nobel and other prizes as well as research citations in top academic journals.
The Technion tied with other institutions at 102, making it the No. 2-ranked Israeli university after The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It ranked it 15th in the world in computer science, 42nd in engineering/technology, and 51st in natural sciences and mathematics All seven Israeli universities made it onto the top-500 list, the 13th-largest national group even though Israel is a country of just seven million people. But Shmueli said The Technion had to do more to raise its international profile in the increasingly global world of science. A premier institution needs to attract talent from outside the country and give its own students and faculty exposure to developments abroad. Manhattan has the drawing power that by itself The Technion’s Haifa home cannot match.
“Now the Technion will be household name,” Shmueli explained. ”When a brilliant PhD student thinks about where to do his post-doc, The Technion will be among the places he thinks of going.”
The New York partnership is not The Technion’s first foray into global science. In the past two years it has set up three research laboratories in Singapore with National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. It has established an international program that offers degree in civil and environmental engineering and plans to expand to other degree programs. “Toward the end of the decade we want 1,000 foreign students on campus,” he said.
The new university may also give a boost to Israeli academics, which is only now beginning to recover from years of budget cuts that prevented it from hiring faculty and expanding departments.
“There are Israelis abroad that right now that cannot find a position in Israel who may start their career in this institute and decide to move back to Israel later. It can serve as a bridge,” he said.
Shmueli said he did not see the new campus in New York drawing away resources from Israel. The new university will generate much of its own income from tuition, research grants, commercialization of technology and a $100 million contribution promised from the city. The new institution, which will host visiting Technion faculty and students, will also open new research-funding opportunities. by making them eligible for a wider range of U.S. government funds, he said.