Reichman University

Reichman University combines private, nonprofit governance with an educational model inspired by elite American universities, relying on tuition and donations rather than allocations from Israel’s higher-education budgetary system.[2] Its stated mission emphasizes interdisciplinary education, research, international engagement, social responsibility, and the preparation of future leaders.[4] The institutional motto, “freedom and responsibility,” accompanies a commitment to a free and tolerant society and a Zionist philosophy.[4][5]

The university is in Herzliya, a city north of Tel Aviv.[1] Its library is listed at 8 Ha’Universita Street, Herzliya, under the institutional designation “Reichman University (IDC), Herzliya,” with the library code IDC.[6] The former Interdisciplinary Center name therefore remains associated with the institution in library records as well as in references to its earlier history.[6][2]

Academic offerings span undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral study in law, business, computer science, government, communication, psychology, economics, sustainability, and entrepreneurship.[7] The university also operates a medical school.[8] Its institutional profile lists ten schools and 32 laboratories and research institutes, alongside 8,900 students and 40,000 alumni, without assigning a separate reporting date to those totals.[9] An earlier, undated institutional profile listed eight schools, collaborations with more than 60 universities worldwide, and international conferences including the Herzliya Conference.[10]

The educational approach joins academic study with practical training and encourages innovative thinking, professional excellence, and leadership.[11] Entrepreneurship and community involvement are institutional emphases, rather than activities confined to a single degree program.[5] The international school adds English-language undergraduate and graduate education to this model and has drawn students from approximately 90 countries to the Herzliya campus.[3][7]

The institution’s founding declaration is dated May 11, 1994, when members of the Herzliya City Council and the founders laid the foundations for a new university in the presence of Israel’s justice and housing ministers.[11][12] Uriel Reichman established it as the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, a private college intended to develop into a university.[2][13] Its first 240 students studied in barracks on an abandoned military base, and the founding declaration identified business, law, and technology as its initial fields.[3][12]

The founders’ educational ambitions extended beyond adding places in higher education.[12] The declaration emphasized freedom of thought and research, personal fulfillment, interdisciplinary training, scientific and professional excellence, and an international outlook.[12] It envisaged bringing together students of different faiths from the region and the wider world, contributing to the local community, and serving residents of Israel, the region, and young Jews from the Diaspora.[12] Its guiding principles were also linked to Theodor Herzl’s “principles of humanity,” with education presented as a means of contributing to peace and dignity in the Middle East.[11]

Reichman described the founding purpose as addressing a lack of higher-education opportunities for some Israeli young people and educating students for leadership, self-actualization, and social awareness.[2] The American university model informed the institution’s private, nonprofit structure and its approach to academic and administrative independence.[2] Its expenses were financed through tuition and donations rather than the state’s higher-education budgeting system.[13]

Expansion began soon after the foundation: the Arison School of Business and Efi Arazi School of Computer Science opened in 1995, followed by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in 1996.[14] The Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy was established in 2000, the year of the first Herzliya Conference.[14] The Raphael Recanati International School and Zell Entrepreneurship Program followed in 2001.[14]

The international school began during the Second Intifada.[15] In a later recollection, Reichman put its initial enrollment at about 20 Jewish students from a handful of countries and recalled deciding to continue despite a proposal to close it.[15] Jonathan Davis, who became vice president for external relations and head of the international school, recalled an enrollment of 30 students when he joined the institution during that period.[16]

Further academic expansion included the School of Psychology in 2007, the Tiomkin School of Economics in 2010, the School of Sustainability in 2012, and the Adelson School of Entrepreneurship in 2013.[14] Authorization to grant doctoral degrees followed in 2018, beginning with law.[14][17] Subsequent approvals encompassed doctoral degrees in computer science and psychology as well.[2]

The path from college to university involved a distinction between permission to award doctorates and formal university recognition.[17] In 2018, the chair of the National Union of Israeli Students emphasized that doctoral authorization did not itself make IDC a university.[17] The institution used the Reichman University name before formal recognition and petitioned a court in 2020 over registration of that name.[13]

On August 17, 2021, the Council for Higher Education recognized IDC as a university, accepting a unanimous recommendation from a special expert committee.[13][18] The assessment addressed academic, scientific, and research quality, the expansion of teaching and research fields and degree levels, senior faculty, and research and teaching infrastructure.[13] The committee found its research output comparable with that of other Israeli universities and recommended recognition without qualifications.[13][18] Recognition made the institution Israel’s first private university and its tenth university overall.[13]

The new name honored Uriel Reichman after he announced that he would leave the presidency.[3] Academic regulations specify October 31, 2021, as the effective date of the recognition-related name change.[19] Boaz Ganor was appointed head of the university in 2023; his earlier roles included founding and directing the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism and serving as dean of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy.[11][20]

The university’s historical timeline records the establishment of the Dina Recanati School of Medicine and Google Reichman Tech School in 2022.[14] Medical-school approval from the Council for Higher Education followed in November 2024, with the first four-year cohort expected to begin in February 2025.[8] For the 2025–2026 academic year, institutional plans included artificial-intelligence courses across disciplines and the integration of AI tools into teaching, research, and campus management.[21] Planned curriculum reforms also included university-wide foundational courses on leadership and entrepreneurship, global challenges, technology, and modern Zionism.[21]

For 2023–2024, enrollment totaled 9,201 students: 4,345 men and 4,856 women, with women constituting 52.8 percent of the student body.[22] For the opening of the 2025–2026 academic year, the university reported approximately 8,900 students, including about 3,400 new students entering undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs.[21] An October 2026 interview gave an approximate total of 9,000 students.[15]

Earlier figures provide additional snapshots of institutional growth.[3][7] By 2021, enrollment exceeded 8,000 across ten undergraduate and graduate schools; another report from that year put the total at about 8,300, with roughly 32,000 graduates.[3][7] Undated profiles give totals of 8,000 or 8,400 students and international enrollments of approximately 2,000 from 87 or 90 countries.[10][11] These figures refer to different profiles and reporting periods rather than a single common enrollment census.[10][11]

The Raphael Recanati International School entered the 2017–2018 academic year with more than 2,000 students from 86 countries.[16] Its student body then included 150 Garin Tzabar graduates who had served as lone soldiers.[16] By 2021, reports placed its enrollment above 2,000, with one giving about 2,200 students from 90 countries pursuing full academic programs in English.[3][7] For 2025–2026, the university reported approximately 2,300 international-school students from 90 countries, while the October 2026 interview gave about 2,200 international students from approximately 90 countries.[21][15]

Connections between study, military service, and settlement in Israel form part of the international school’s institutional identity.[21][15] In its 2025–2026 opening-year account, the university reported that about 350 international-school students were lone soldiers who had served in the reserves during the Iron Swords War.[21] It also expected about 155 wounded IDF veterans to study at the institution and identified their education and campus integration as a societal and moral mission.[21]

Institutional estimates of aliyah have varied in their wording and reference group.[21][15] Davis’s account of the international school entering 2017–2018 reported that at least 70 percent of its students chose to immigrate during or after their studies.[16] The 2025–2026 institutional account likewise gave approximately 70 percent, while Reichman’s 2026 estimate was that more than half of students arriving from abroad ultimately made aliyah and settled in Israel.[21][15] These are institutional estimates of student outcomes, not a common independently measured series.[21][15]

Annual undergraduate tuition was reported as NIS 42,000 in 2021, within a funding model based on student fees and donations rather than the state higher-education budgeting system.[13] The university’s stated vision includes taking students’ financial means into account in tuition arrangements.[21] Its educational culture combines the motto “freedom and responsibility” with leadership, entrepreneurship, community involvement, and an explicitly Zionist orientation.[4][5]

Jonathan Davis described the institution’s founding outlook as a “Zionist ethos,” drawing on the idealism of Herzl, Jabotinsky, Ben-Gurion, and Begin.[16] Reichman’s later explanation of the international school emphasized connecting students from abroad with Israel through English-language study, shared activities, tours, and contact with Israeli students.[15] He characterized students who returned to their home countries as “ambassadors for Israel.”[15] A SAPIR Journal commentary argued that its English-language undergraduate degrees could provide American Jewish students with both Zionist and liberal arts education, and presented living and studying in Israel as formative.[23]

English-language undergraduate offerings include computer science, business administration, communications, entrepreneurship, government, psychology, economics and entrepreneurship with data science, and sustainability and government.[24] Listed graduate options include machine learning and data science, behavioral and financial economics, human-computer interaction, government specializations, and several MBA programs.[24] The Government MA at the international school is organized as a one-year, three-semester program including summer, with specializations in Diplomacy and Conflict Studies, Counter-Terrorism and Homeland Security Studies, and Public Policy and Administration; the last is offered in Hebrew only.[25]

Counterterrorism research has been part of the campus since the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism was founded there in 1996.[26] Its early interdisciplinary work brought together specialists in psychology, criminology, computer science, biology, chemistry, and physics to develop approaches to counterterrorism.[26] Boaz Ganor founded the institute and held its executive directorship before heading the university.[11][20] A Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs profile identifies Dan Diker as one of its research fellows.[27]

The university also hosts international conferences, notably the Herzliya Conference, first held in 2000.[10][14] Its work on regional and strategic affairs appeared in an October 2021 reading list that included Moshe Albo’s article on U.S. strategy and regional architecture and Amos Gilead’s article on achievements and challenges in the strategic map.[28]

The Zell Entrepreneurship Program was founded in 2001 with sponsorship from investor Sam Zell.[29] A 2013 account described a year-long academic program in which selected students developed ventures with industry mentors, using company-style board meetings, targets, budgeting, and sales planning.[29] Hundreds applied annually and 20 were selected; five exits by graduate companies had totaled $120 million by that point.[29] Program director Liat Aaronson emphasized entrepreneurial experience as the objective, rather than requiring every venture to become a successful company or achieve a sale.[29]

By 2022, graduates had reportedly founded more than 300 startups over the preceding two decades, raised $4.8 billion, and produced 14 unicorns.[30] That year, the university was creating a venture-capital fund with $30 million in investor commitments, focused principally on startups founded by students and graduates.[30] Planned pre-seed and seed investments were generally $200,000–$500,000.[30] The university was not itself investing in the fund but would act as general partner, with proceeds intended for an endowment.[30]

Graduate- or faculty-established startups have been acquired by companies including eBay, Intel, Apple, Google, Microsoft, McAfee, Salesforce, Cisco, and Facebook.[5] The university’s 2025–2026 account reported 47th place worldwide in PitchBook’s 2025 Global University Rankings, based on 357 alumni entrepreneurs who founded 303 companies and collectively raised $9 billion.[21] It also reported eighth place among universities with up to 15,000 students.[21]

In 2022, Reichman and Google announced a School of High-Tech intended to widen access to Israeli technology careers.[31] Planned courses covered programming, software testing, business development, sales, and data analysis, combining academic learning with professional training.[31] Target populations included women, ultra-Orthodox Jews, Arabs, Ethiopian Israelis, residents of the geographic periphery, and people from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds.[31] Google was to provide scholarships, with tuition considerations excluded from admissions; teaching was planned at Google’s campus in Tel Aviv and at Reichman in Herzliya, with possible future courses in northern and southern Israel.[31]

The Dina Recanati School of Medicine was established through support from the Dina and Rafael Recanati Family Foundation in collaboration with Sheba Medical Center, Rabin Medical Center, Clalit Health Services, and Maccabi Healthcare Services.[8] Its approved four-year M.D. program was intended for applicants already holding a science degree and was planned for up to 80 students annually, with Schneider leading pediatric training.[32] The first cohort of about 80 was expected in February 2025 and a second in November 2025.[8]

The medical curriculum includes community-medicine clinical instruction from the first week, with training in hospitals, clinics, and home patient care.[8] Preparations included investment of tens of millions of dollars in laboratories and recruitment of clinical lecturers.[33] Dean-designate Arnon Afek proposed expanded use of medical simulators and said the school would not dissect cadavers.[34] The program was presented as a response to physician shortages and limited places for Israeli medical students.[32]

Medical education also generated a substantive debate about private tuition and access to clinical placements.[34] Critics questioned the need for an additional school and warned of competition with existing programs for training places, while supporters argued that hospitals had underused teaching capacity.[34] Approval in 2024 followed an earlier rejected application; contemporaneous reports placed annual tuition at NIS 90,000 and NIS 98,000 respectively.[33][32]

The campus includes the Raphael Recanati Avenue of Flags, described in 2021 as a row of 60 flagpoles representing the home countries of international students. The Sammy Ofer School of Communications contains radio and television studios, while two 13-story residential buildings provide 500 units used primarily by overseas students.[3]

A small campus museum houses an iron printing press brought by Moses Montefiore in 1842 and later used to print Ha-Havatzelet, described as the first modern Hebrew newspaper printed in the country. A communications display also includes radios that play a recording of the 1947 United Nations partition vote.[3]