IDC Herzliya

The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (IDC) – is Israel’s first privately funded fully-accredited institution of higher education with a broad range of undergraduate and graduate programs. Founded by renowned Israeli Professor Uriel Reichman in 1994, IDC Herzliya is a non-profit organization modeled after Ivy League universities in the U.S.

In the twenty years since its establishment, IDC Herzliya’s success has drawn both international recognition and some of the finest lecturers and researchers from around the world

Our faculty is dedicated to IDC Herzliya’s primary goal: giving our students the tools they need to become leaders in all Social Science fields, both in Israel and abroad.

Since its founding, the IDC has been an academic avant-garde – at the forefront of constitutional and governmental reconstruction, economic growth, reevaluation of Israel’s strategy and policies of foreign relations, as well as the country’s social and moral agenda.

The IDC is unique in its interdisciplinary approach towards education, combining theory with real-world experience, providing its students with skills of the highest level. Rooted in the twin concepts of individual freedom and responsibility, the IDC emphasizes student’s entrepreneurship and leadership alongside strong commitment to community service.

The IDC’s faculty is world-renowned. In Law we are widely recognized as one of the best schools in Israel. The computer science and business administration faculty members are engaged in many R&D projects, on a wide-range of topics, supported by local and international sponsors; our MBA program is one of the best in the country. The faculty of government studies includes scholars famous for their work on the Middle East, decision-making, conflict resolution, international relations and strengthening democracies against the growing threat of global terrorism. At the recently-founded school of communications, internationally renowned experts on new media explore the impact of changing technology on man and society. The School of Psychology is hard at work establishing itself as a strong center of excellence. The school of Sustainability emphasizes the importance of business development, public administration and environmental entrepreneurship to Israel, which faces a complex geopolitical reality involving many challenges. The school of Economics has a distinguished faculty that is not captive to old teaching and research concepts and is most suited to apply the latest theoretical models, which utilize new database, communications, and statistical technologies.

The IDC takes great pride in its faculty of 150, a select student body of 6,500, 10 schools, 28 research centers, labs and institutes – including the world-renowned Institute for Counter Terrorism, Policy and Strategy (the Herzliya Conference),  and more. Our bilateral agreements – notably with the University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School of Business, The Maxwell School of Syracuse University, Washington University St. Louis, University of Ottawa, University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University, Charles University, Heinrich-Heine University of Dusseldorf and Singapore Management University – are a testament to the quality education we offer. An international representation of 1100 students from more than sixty countries study undergraduate and graduate-level programs entirely in English.

Our interdisciplinary research is recognized world-wide in both competitive grants and publications; ranked exceptionally high on SSRN. We have over 100 active grants over 20 from the EU alone. Out of the 20+ EU grants we are now managing 4 active ERC grants at the total sum of 5 mil. Є.

Contacts:

Dr. Eric H. Zimmerman

Dr. Eric H. Zimmerman

Personal Statement

Born (1962) and raised in New York City, Eric studied for his undergraduate and graduate studies at Brooklyn College, majoring in Judaic Studies. Following a brief stint in Jewish community work, he moved to Israel with his wife in 1988. Initially living on a kibbutz and working as an irrigation manager in the orchards, Eric began his career in higher education management in 1993 when he joined Bar-Ilan University’s Research Authority. Today, Eric is Director of Research and Global Engagement at IDC Herzliya. Eric, and his wife Sharon, have five children and reside in a residential community in the Greater Tel Aviv area. Sharon, an economist by education (Barnard) is a partner in a consultancy firm specializing in managing multi-partner international research and development consortia.

Professional Statement

Working together with the President and Provost, Dr Zimmerman established and directed (for eight years) the Academic Affairs, International Engagement and Research Support Offices at the Interdisciplinary Centre (IDC), Herzliya. Recruited in 2006, Dr. Zimmerman now provides leadership and service to faculty, staff, and students, assisting in implementing policy and decisions of the IDC academic and governing committees relating to research and global engagement. His wide portfolio includes responsibility for all competitive research and program grants and the protection of the institutional intellectual property; developing global partnerships and managing all institutional internationalization agreements, including student exchange, summer and study abroad programs; managing the development of double degree MA-level programs; and the development of joint doctoral programs.

Dr. Zimmerman has been a member of several national and international committees, most recently a Higher Education Reform Expert (HERE) of the European Commission, and is a past leader of a task group within the largest European professional association of research administrators (EARMA), a founding board member of a European-based association on research information management (euroCRIS), the force behind the development of the Israel National Database of Academic Research and Development (INDARD), and party to other national and global initiatives. He regularly writes and lectures on internationalization, entrepreneurship education, research management, academic productivity and Israel and advises organizations on information management and work flow practices as they effect academics and administrators at institutions of higher education.

Eric coordinates the TeachEx project.

Prior to joining the leadership team of IDC Herzliya, Dr. Zimmerman served as the assistant director of the Bar-Ilan University (Israel) research support office, coordinating efforts to secure competitive grants in the STEM, social sciences and the humanities.

Mr. Christian Jowers

Mr. Christian Jowers

Christian is the TeachEx project manager along with Dr. Eric Zimmerman, the TeachEx Coordinator.

Originally from Madrid, Spain, Christian moved to Israel with his family in the summer of 2016 and has been IDC’s International Relations Coordinator ever since. Before that, he held different positions at the University of Edinburgh developing international collaborations for academic mobility and joint programming.  Christian has extensive experience in implementing overarching international strategies in particular with East Asia and Latin America, and managing higher education projects involving various stakeholders, at both national and international level. On November 1st, 2017, Christian took on the project management of TeachEx: Teaching Excellence in Israel. He has previously managed several international collaborative projects, involving national and international stakeholders.  In particular, he delivered a 3-year project developed in cooperation with the Municipality of the City of Medellín, Colombia, to enhance accessibility of the city for the elderly. This project involved experts from different fields (landscaping; engineering; nursing; sustainability) on both sides of the Atlantic.

He is a firm believer of the power of education to tackle global concerns, and has a deeply-rooted multicultural upbringing, having lived in five different countries. Christian holds a MA (Hons) in Chinese from the University of Edinburgh and enjoys cooking, playing the cello and the flute. He is happily married to Tali and fathers Yael (2) and Gabriel (8).

Mr. Idan Almog

Mr. Idan Almog

Idan Almog is the Head of Teaching Innovation at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya.

As such, he is: Developing a new teaching model (Multi-directional teaching), testing and Implementing various Innovative teaching methods and models, exploring tools for teaching / learning / evaluation, developing new concepts for explanatory movies, etc..

Before joining the Interdisciplinary Center, Idan worked as a freelance writer of three unique pedagogic programs for the 4-6 grades. The programs were written using constructive methods, in the fields of: Math thinking, Science thinking & Hebrew.

In addition, Idan has past experience as a content production manager in a global Edu-Tech company.

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