Academic exchange ‘a weapon against BDS’
SENDING Australian academics to Israel helps to combat the delegitimisation of the Jewish State on campuses, the executive director of the Technion Society of Australia (TSA), Ken Lander, said last week.
SENDING Australian academics to Israel helps to combat the delegitimisation of the Jewish State on campuses, the executive director of the Technion Society of Australia (TSA), Ken Lander, said last week.
The TSA has just announced its 2012 Theeman Scholars, a program that fosters the exchange of Australian and Technion academics to enhance research collaboration. Lander said exchanges such as those facilitated by the TSA Theeman Fund were just as important as sending journalists and politicians on fact-finding missions to Israel.
“Part of the BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement around the world is to delegitimise Israel on campus, and these types of scientific exchanges, academic exchanges are the strongest weapon that Israel has to delegitimise BDS,” he said.
“Through these sorts of exchanges Australian academics for example, who wouldn’t have any idea about the political situation or the subtleties within Israeli society, get an insight, because they’re working next to people who they see are just as passionate about life and their science and so forth, and are bettering humanity, as they are.”
As part of this year’s program, the University of Queensland Business School’s Professor Neal Ashkanasy, a world-leading researcher in organisational behaviour, will spend three months at the Technion working on several research projects and delivering a number of research seminars. Psychology professor Michael Smithson of the Australian National University, a leading researcher in
the study of ignorance, uncertainty and decision-making, will spend three weeks at the Technion giving seminars and being a lead speaker in an international workshop on the subject of “decisions under severe uncertainty”.
In exchange, Associate Professor Avner Rothschild, who lectures in materials science and engineering at the Technion, will visit the University of NSW, where he will focus on collaborative research into photoelectrochemical cells for solar hydrogen production, as well as photovoltaic and other renewable-energy technologies.
Last year’s Theeman Scholars, Professor Farid Christo from the University of South Australia and Professor Graeme Murch from the University of Newcastle, will report on their research at the TSA’s Einstein Supper on May 22.
GARETH NARUNSKY
The executive director of the Technion Society of Australia (TSA), Ken Lander.
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