Tel Aviv University - Global TAU

TAU ranks 29th in the "World Citations per Faculty Indicator" by the prestigious QS World University Rankings 2027.

This metric, which accounts for 20% of the overall QS score, is considered one of the key measures of research quality and international impact, reflecting the influence of the university researchers’ scientific publications on the global academic community.

QS, regarded as one of the world's most influential and respected measures of academic excellence, evaluated more than 1,500 universities across the globe this year.

According to the rankings, TAU is 208th in the world, leading all academic institutions in Israel. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem was ranked 218th, while the Technion ranked 334th. Topping this year’s global rankings are MIT, Stanford University, and the University of Oxford.

QS Top Universities

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The TISFF - Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival, now in its 40th year, opens tomorrow at the Tel Aviv Cinemateque for a week of worldwide cinema celebration. Coming at a time when some seek to isolate Israeli artists and institutions, the festival offers a different vision: one of creativity, dialogue, and connection.

Despite boycott efforts, filmmakers from around the world continue to choose engagement over exclusion. This year, submissions arrived from countries as diverse as South Korea, India, Germany, and Burkina Faso; a powerful reminder that art still can transcend borders and bring people together.

That spirit is at the heart of this festival, which has been organized by students from the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television for four decades. Not for students, but by students. It reflects something we believe deeply at Tel Aviv University: when young people are trusted with real responsibility, they are capable of creating extraordinary things.

What began as a student initiative has grown into one of the world’s leading showcases for student and short films. Along the way, it has become a hub for international collaboration, cultural exchange, and conversations that might not happen anywhere else.

We are also honored to welcome Academy Award-winning filmmaker Guy Nattiv, whose participation speaks to the caliber of talent this festival continues to attract.

And the festival's impact extends well beyond our campus. Through the Film Bus project, screenings and conversations with filmmakers will travel to communities in Israel’s south, reflecting our belief that education and culture should reach beyond university walls and be accessible to all.

Forty years later, this festival has grown deeper in purpose, broader in reach, and more relevant to the world than ever.

Congratulations to the students, faculty, filmmakers, and partners who continue to keep this creative flame burning bright.

For more info & program: https://tisff.com/en/2026/schedule

Read the Jerusalem Post article about the festival: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/culture/article-898041

בית הספר לקולנוע וטלוויזיה אונ׳ תל אביב TAU Film&TV

From pioneering mRNA therapeutics to developing targeted RNA-based medicines and innovative drug delivery technologies, Prof. Dan Peer’s research has helped shape the future of medicine.

We are proud to share that Prof. Peer, Tel Aviv University’s Vice President for Research and Development and Head of the Laboratory of Precision Nano-Medicine, has received the Founders Award of the Controlled Release Society (CRS) — the highest honor in the field of drug delivery science.

Throughout his career, Prof. Peer and his team have achieved a series of world-first breakthroughs, including developing mRNA-based therapies and vaccines and advancing gene-editing technologies designed to target specific cells.

This prestigious recognition honors not only scientific excellence, but also research with the potential to transform the way diseases are treated.

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Photo credit: Ifaat Golan

Congratulations to the Dan David Prize 2026 winners! This year marks five years since the Prize, headquartered at Tel Aviv University, was relaunched to focus on historical research and practice. With the addition of the 2026 cohort, the Dan David Prize has recognized 45 scholars and practitioners across six continents, awarding more than $13.5 million (USD) to support groundbreaking historical work.
Read more to find out about this year's winners:

Announcing the 2026 Dan David Prize winners 📣

Congratulations to this year's winners who will each receive $300K for their contribution to the study of the past and to support future work.

The Dan David Prize is celebrating 5 years as the world's largest history Prize 🌍
https://dandavidprize.org/our-winners/

Millions of people live with autoimmune diseases—but scientists still don't fully understand why the body's immune system sometimes turns against itself.

A new $15 million investment from the Colton Foundation will help change that. The funding strengthens the Colton Consortium for Autoimmunity, a research partnership between Tel Aviv University, the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, and Yale University.

The impact could be far-reaching. By supporting top scientific talent and expanding collaborative research, this investment will help accelerate discoveries in diseases such as multiple sclerosis, lupus, type 1 diabetes, and Crohn’s disease—bringing researchers closer to better diagnostics, treatments, and, ultimately, prevention.

“This support allows us to expand collaborations with leading researchers in the U.S. and Israel and advance innovative research into autoimmune diseases,” said Prof. Uri Nevo, Director of the Colton Center for Autoimmunity at Tel Aviv University.

📸 Pictured: Prof. Uri Nevo, Stewart and Judith Colton, and TAU President Prof. Ariel Porat at the opening of the Colton Center for Autoimmunity at TAU in 2023.

Nearly half of the electricity used on Tel Aviv University's campus now comes from renewable energy sources.

That means approximately 45% of our electricity consumption is powered by solar and other renewable energy sources, an important milestone on our path toward 100% renewable electricity.

Over the past three years, more than 17,000 square meters of solar panels have been installed across campus, helping transform sustainability goals into measurable action.

“Until recently, our use of renewable energy amounted to just a few percent. In a short time, we made a dramatic change and reached 45% green power on campus. This is not just an environmental statement - it is a real operational revolution that significantly reduces TAU's greenhouse gas emissions, " Dr. Judi Lax, Head of Sustainability, Engineering and Maintenance at TAU.

And we're not stopping there. Plans are already underway for a large-scale energy storage facility to support the next phase of our transition to clean energy.

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The 2026 Annual Career Fair, led by TAU's Career Development Center and the Students' Success Center, took place on campus last week.

Hundreds of students and graduates met with recruiters and representatives from some of Israel's leading employers, including Osem-Nestle, the National Digital Agency, the Center for Cyber Education, Electra, Unilever, L'Oréal, Shaldor, the Civil Service Cadets Program, Strauss, Horizon Electronics, Applied Materials, NVIDIA, Kesselman & Kesselman (PwC Israel), Cisco, TASC, Qualcomm, Deloitte, Ben Horin Alexandrovitz, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the Ministry of Communications, Bank Leumi, and Kan 11.

Best of luck to all who applied!

A major honor for a TAU researcher helping reshape the future of cancer treatment.

Congratulations to Prof. Uri Ben-David of the Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences on receiving the 2026 Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists in Life Sciences.

Presented by the Blavatnik Family Foundation in partnership with the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the New York Academy of Sciences, the award is one of the most prestigious distinctions for outstanding early-career scientists under the age of 42.

Prof. Ben-David’s research explores how genetic changes in cancer cells drive tumor growth and resistance to treatment. His groundbreaking discoveries are illuminating new ways to target cancer more precisely and effectively, bringing promising new therapeutic approaches closer to patients.

“This is a tremendous honor for me,” said Prof. Ben-David. “I am grateful for this recognition and proud of the outstanding team that works with me to achieve these shared accomplishments.”

📸 Pictured: Sir Len Blavatnik with the 2026 award recipients (from left to right: Dr. Sergey Semenov, Prof. Uri Ben-David, Sir Len Blavatnik, and Prof. Paz Beniamini).
Photo credit: Eran Bari

הפקולטה למדעי הרפואה והבריאות ע"ש גריי, אוניברסיטת ת"א

Tomorrow is World Environment Day, so we are asking: what can we do to preserve our planet?

We all love a sweet treat, but the world’s favorite sweetener may not be the planet’s favorite crop. “Sugar accounts for roughly a quarter of global agricultural production and carries substantial environmental and health implications,” says Prof. Alon Shepon of Tel Aviv University’s New Environmental School. Prof. Shepon recently won the prestigious international Frontiers Planet Prize for his work showing how reducing sugar consumption would benefit both the environment and public health.

The Frontiers Planet Prize is a global competition between scientists whose research contributes to ensuring humanity does not exceed Earth’s limits of sustainability.

Prof. Shepon’s team showed how Earth’s systems and humanity are deeply intertwined: the planet’s land must sustain us, and the decisions we make about how to use that land affect our health, our economies, the climate and the global ecosystem. Not only does overconsumption of sugar lead to health problems like obesity and heart disease—it also takes over land that could be used for nutritious food or for preserving wildlife. So, the team proposed either reducing sugar intake worldwide, or finding better and more efficient uses for the excess sugar that can justify its outsized footprint.

“By modeling these scenarios, we show that relatively modest changes in consumption patterns can unlock disproportionate environmental and societal gains at scale,” says Prof. Shepon. “By aligning diets, agricultural production, and policy frameworks, it becomes possible to reduce environmental pressures while promoting equitable and health-supportive food transitions—moving closer to a future in which Earth’s life-support systems remain within a safe operating space for generations to come.”

מוזיאון הטבע ע״ש שטיינהרדט, אונ' תל אביב