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Dear Weizmann Institute community,

As Israel moves from darkness to light, deterring its enemies and rebuilding itself for a better future, the lights of Hanukah and the anticipation of a new year ahead are a reminder of overcoming difficult challenges and of our natural sense of hope, as we aspire to return to routine. I wish all of you a Happy Hanukah and Happy New Year 2025, and a Merry Christmas to those who celebrate.

The year 2024 is coming to a close, and this marks the end of my first five-year term and the beginning of the second term. I am taking this opportunity to offer a brief summary of the first term and of future plans.

As President, my primary task is stewarding this great institution toward ongoing achievement, together with the Institute’s scientific and administrative management. We do so always cognizant that we humbly carry the legacy of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who established the precursor to the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Daniel Sieff Research Institute, in 1934, and as we do our best to build on the successes of Institute leadership throughout the years. As we marked the 90th anniversary this year, we were reminded how Dr. Weizmann saw education and research as the very foundations of the future State of Israel. His vision is just as relevant today, and it is our job to keep those foundations healthy and strong.

Few years in Israel’s history have been as challenging as the last, and those who care deeply about this country remain focused on continuing to strengthen and fortify it. At the Weizmann Institute, our work is a key part of that mission, because world-class science and technology are drivers of Israel’s resilience and success, and part of a broader endeavor of advancing science for all humanity.

We have steered the Weizmann ship through unusually stormy waters, having grappled with a global pandemic, national turmoil over the government’s proposed judicial changes, and the October 7, 2023, terror attacks and the ensuing war. We have had to maneuver these challenges and adapt to unexpected changes. This has required flexibility and agility, and while it has not always been easy, I would like to believe that we have succeeded in advancing our mission and even exceeding many of the goals we set for ourselves.
The people behind the science

Let’s start with the people—the engines of Weizmann research—where our long-term goal is to expand our range of scientific inquiry and nurture an outstanding pool of talent. In the last five years, we continued to recruit the best minds in science, and I am inspired by these exceptional individuals and energized by their ideas and creativity. Until now and despite Israel’s significant population growth, the number of principal investigators (PIs) at Weizmann has remained relatively static, which means we aren’t fully leveraging the country’s growing body of talent. Moving forward, we plan to recruit more new scientists and thereby enlarge our ranks. In addition, we recently raised the retirement age of PIs and staff scientists, so as to keep key scientific avenues vibrant and productive.

Expanding capacity and flourishing involves ensuring greater gender diversification among our faculty and nurturing our international culture, since advancing science requires that a diversity of approaches and experiences are brought to bear on complex research questions. I’m happy to report that a growing percentage of our new scientist recruits are women; in 2024, for instance, four out of the nine new hires were women. We aspire to attain a balanced gender ratio that fully reflects the pool of scientific talent, such that we enlist all the brightest minds in the research endeavor. Much proactive work by our Office for the Advancement of Women in Science and Gender Equality and our scientific leadership has been done to advance this goal. This has involved thorough work in identifying outstanding female postdoctoral fellows, tracking their success, and providing them support through fellowships so these women ultimately choose Weizmann as their career home.

We have made key changes in the evaluation process of scientific areas carried out at the Institute, such that the review panels can evaluate fields more frequently and offer direct feedback to individual scientists. In addition, valuable changes in the status of staff scientists have been made, including improvements in their employment conditions and the promotion process. A career track unique to the Weizmann Institute, staff scientists are crucial partners in our labs and core facilities, and in many cases lead their own independent research avenues.

We recently changed the name of the Feinberg Graduate School to the Weizmann School of Science, having understood the importance of enhancing the name recognition of the graduate school in attracting the best and brightest students and postdocs, including from overseas. The new name makes the connection between the Institute and the School more obvious and leverages the excellent name recognition of the Weizmann Institute. Plans are underway to raise stipends, offer new merit-based financial incentives, and enlarge housing subsidies.

As part of our mission to educate the next generation, the newly launched Miriam and Aaron Gutwirth Medical School (which is under the auspices of the Weizmann School of Science) will offer dual MD/PhD degrees in an effort to cultivate a professional cohort of physician-scientists. These graduates will be positioned to become leaders in Israeli science and medicine, with worldwide impact. We are very excited about this development. While the DNA of the Institute—fundamental scientific research—remains unchanged, the medical school will offer a major new dimension to biomedical studies and research. 
Scientific infrastructure

We identified a number of research areas in which we already have a critical mass of high-quality research and where we felt that there was a timely need to invest in order to ensure our scientific leadership in these fields. The Azrieli Institute for Brain and Neural Sciences, Frontiers of the Universe (particle physics and astrophysics), the Institute for Environmental Sustainability, and AI Ignite (our artificial intelligence initiative) serve as organizational structures for these endeavors—our flagship projects. Each contains an educational programming component that is run by the Davidson Institute of Science Education. All of them are attracting major donor giving, and we are continuing to fundraise for them.

Given the fast pace of science, we must continue to expand and update our laboratory space and create space for the most modern equipment, to maintain our edge and deepen our expertise. Early in my first presidential term, we completed a thorough renovation of the Ullmann Building housing the Moross Integrated Cancer Center and completed construction of the David Lopatie Institute of Comparative Medicine. New buildings for neuroscience, physics, and materials science are in various phases of construction and will serve as homes for the aforementioned flagship projects. The André Deloro Building for Advanced and Intelligent Materials, housing the Tom and Mary Beck Center for Advanced and Intelligent Materials, is nearly complete. Construction is well underway on the N.E. Alexander Family M Foundation Physics Building, and we recently broke ground on the Anonymous Family and Brazil Friends Building that will house our neuroscience community.

Moving forward, the medical school will be part of a larger Biomedical Village consisting of several buildings including the home of a future flagship project in immunology, infectious disease, and regenerative biology. This new project, which I’ll update you more on in the near future, leverages an historically strong area of research which has created renown for Weizmann throughout the decades. A new building for artificial intelligence research, housing the Knell Family Institute for Artificial Intelligence, has been planned. It will be the headquarters of the AI flagship, and will include ample space for AI fellows working with PIs across campus to advance a wide range of explorations using AI tools, as well as a home for Weizmann IT.

All of these new facilities will not only enable the relocation of many of our scientists to more modern labs and offices, but will also free up space elsewhere on campus for other scientists and new recruits, and allow further expansion in new scientific directions.

We have invested significant sums in new scientific equipment to keep pace with the rapid growth of research, advancements in technology, and the need to continually refine and upgrade instrumentation. An example of one purchase is the Multi-Aperture Spectroscopic Telescope (MAST), an array of telescopes invented by Weizmann astrophysicists and installed at Kibbutz Neot Smadar in the Negev. Another is COSMOS, a robotic system in the Lopatie Institute, which safely and seamlessly handles 18,000 animals used for preclinical studies.

The bonds between scientists are no less important than the bricks and mortar I’ve described. Indeed, scientific collaborations have always been crucial to advancing our research, and in the last five years we have both expanded existing collaborations and entered into new formal institutional collaborations around the world. Some of our new partnerships include Brain Canada in Montreal; the University of Navarra Cancer Center in Spain; the University of Chicago, with a focus on quantum computing; Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence in the UAE; and with Schneider Children’s Medical Center, thanks to the Dr. Gilbert S. Omenn and Martha A. Darling Weizmann Institute-Schneider Hospital Fund for Clinical Breakthroughs through Scientific Collaboration. With the creation of the medical school, we entered into a formal collaboration with Sheba Tel HaShomer Medical Centre and other medical centers and HMOs.

In addition, the Weizmann School of Science established a joint postdoctoral program with the Max Planck Society, which offers postdocs from any country the opportunity to perform a four-year fellowship split between the Weizmann Institute and one of the Max Planck institutes in Germany. The success of this program in expanding our pool of excellent international postdocs has served as an impetus for us to initiate other such programs around the world. After October 7, few new international postdocs joined the Institute, and these initiatives will help ensure an ongoing influx of international postdocs and students to campus. 
Community and campus life

A strong and vibrant campus community and an aesthetic campus makes the Institute an even more compelling place to study and work, and offers everyone the peace of mind needed to focus on the tasks at hand. From the management perspective, this has involved laying the groundwork for improved housing options, daycare centers, upgraded health club facilities, and more. We also have improved our relationship with the Rehovot Municipality, which smooths the way for cooperation in building and transportation planning.

With regard to housing, a beautiful new neighborhood consisting of apartments and houses for scientists and their families, SAMEACH, is nearly complete; the first group of families is moving in this month. Steps away, the new Helmsley Community Center, now under construction, will enable the co-location of our daycare facilities which are currently on opposite sides of campus. Not far from there will be the Pennie and Gary Abramson Family International Residence for students and postdocs, whose construction is nearly complete. We have demolished the former Kipnis dorms to make way for the construction of the International Campus, for students and postdocs with families, which will begin next year.

Together, these projects will provide us with hundreds of new housing units for young families and singles and will enable us to subsidize dormitory costs for students and postdocs. However, even with all these initiatives, we’ll still need more housing units to satisfy demand, and to that end we are in the early stages of planning a demolition and rebuilding of the Ruthie and Samy Cohn Residences, which will offer an additional 800 units. We are also planning a major renovation of the Weisgal Recreation Center, which will become the Daniel J. and Evelyn G. Simon Health and Wellness Complex. Altogether, these efforts will help keep us highly competitive with peer institutions.

While the Institute has historically developed organically over time, in recent years the need to protect the open, green spaces and the beauty of the campus while also planning for more facilities became evident. Our Green Campus project, now in advanced planning stages, will include the Weizmann Greenway, a pedestrian-only area that will run across campus and will include botanical gardens and other verdant spaces. More broadly, the Green Campus project is a comprehensive plan to promote environmental sustainability goals like reducing our carbon footprint, implementing new guidelines for environmentally friendly construction and resource savings, and putting into effect recycling plans.

A range of wellbeing and engagement activities were launched in recent years. After witnessing the many volunteer efforts among scientists and staff after October 7, we understood there was a thirst for connection to the wider community and have since kicked off a campus-wide voluntary social impact effort. In addition, the “Culture at Sela” program offers a large and growing number of carefully curated art, theater, musical, and film events at the Michael Sela Auditorium, and Yad Chaim Weizmann offers enrichment activities for the public and the Weizmann community.

We completed the refurbishment of a lovely space in the Wolfson House for the Wolfson Club, a charming gathering spot for scientists to interact with one another and where they can host guests. A new cozy space for relaxation and intellectual exchange will be the setting for additional educational Yad Weizmann programming: The house that once belonged to Chaim Weizmann’s driver is being renovated for this purpose, and I’m excited to update that the Gatehouse and Café Vera—situated between Weizmann House and our scientists’ residential area—will offer a gathering spot for the Weizmann community and the public for cappuccinos and culture.

In addition, the Daniel Sieff Research Institute building will soon undergo an historic preservation process, beginning in late 2025. The entirety of the building, which houses the Chaim Weizmann lab, will transform into the Weizmann Heritage Center, a sensational museum and meeting space which will tell the story of the Institute’s early years. 
An ecosystem of innovation

We have transformed our technology transfer operation so that research discoveries can be translated into applications for the marketplace more swiftly and effectively. Bolstering our R&D pipeline will both serve us well financially, given that revenues from Yeda cycle back to advance basic research, and so that high-potential discoveries aren’t overlooked and can ultimately benefit everyone, everywhere. A reorganization of Yeda took place in 2020, including bringing on a new CEO and reinvigorating its board, and updating and rewriting the intellectual property (IP) rules.
 
We established Bina, an academic unit that stands for Bridge, Innovate, Nurture, and Advance. Bina raises awareness among our scientists about commercial application, funds promising insights, and works hand-in-hand with scientists to help their projects reach proof-of-concept and thus be ripe for IP. As of today, dozens of early-stage projects are making their way through the discovery pipeline and many are in the commercialization process.

A start-up incubator called the Weizmann Innovation Nest, or WIN, located in the adjacent Science Park and under the auspices of Yeda, supports several up-and-coming companies based on Weizmann IP at any given time. We are referring to the entire pipeline—from Weizmann labs to Bina, and encompassing Yeda and WIN—as our Innovation Ecosystem. Notably, several biomedical initiatives are now at the clinical trial stage, in partnership with hospitals and physicians, including promising therapies for Alzheimer’s, cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 
Science and society

Never has it been more important to foster connections between science and society at large, because the needs are acute. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Weizmann scientists launched dozens of projects to better understand the disease and offer solutions. The Davidson Institute of Science Education’s website became a go-to source for information about the virus and immunity.

In the wake of October 7, Davidson Institute staff spread out across the country to locations where displaced families were living, to offer hundreds of families and schoolchildren science enrichment, providing a creative intellectual outlet at a time of need and uncertainty. Unrelated to the war, our ongoing commitment to advancing science literacy was the impetus for Davidson’s establishment of a new science-oriented mechina, a gap-year pre-army program, in Netivot in the south, modeled on the successful mechina in Ofakim run by Davidson.

The multi-year reimagination and renewal of the Clore Garden of Science culminated last July, when it opened to the public. To date, it has welcomed an impressive 50,000 visitors. In the spring, we will begin construction on the new Sir John Ritblat Exhibition Hall in the Garden, which will offer space for educational exhibits where large numbers of young people and families will take in the excitement and wonder of science.

In the early stages of the war, it became clear that large numbers of Israeli children were grappling with the psychological effects of trauma, even those who didn’t personally experience violence but lost members of their communities, were displaced from their homes, or were otherwise affected by the war. We quickly galvanized forces and launched Ogen, a national prevention and intervention mentoring program for Israeli children that operates in schools. Through Ogen, university students from the fields of health, psychology, education, and social work receive tuition stipends in exchange for training as mentors who work in classes and on a one-on-one basis to foster children’s coping skills and resilience. While our primary focus at Weizmann is scientific research, I believe that the Institute has a role to play in strengthening our societal ecosystem and I see this program as a long-term investment in the next generation.

The new medical school will also play a role in tightening the links between science and society. Not only will it help address Israel’s shortage of physicians—albeit modestly relative to the need, with 40 graduates per year—but in endeavoring to more closely align science with medicine, it will benefit the health and wellbeing of Israeli society at large.
Why we do it all

Everything I have outlined is done for one reason only: to do great science that will add to the body of knowledge and positively impact humanity. I could spend another 100 pages—and that wouldn’t be enough—describing fascinating research studies that have been published in the last five years by our scientists. Numerous scientists have won prestigious prizes, too many to innumerate here, but which reflect great scientific achievement. Year after year, the Institute remains in the top ranks worldwide among academic institutions, and our scientists continue to successfully recruit grant funding at a rate that far exceeds the norm.

There is still much to do in the months and years ahead to complete everything we have started and to plan into the future. The challenges ahead are not small. Although we avoid the political realm, we aren’t immune to it, in particular from the government’s recent attempts to inhibit freedom of speech. It is incumbent upon us at the Weizmann Institute to voice our uncompromising commitment to academic freedom, without which we cannot thrive—as an institution, and as a society. We remain deeply saddened by the loss of life throughout the war, and share in the grief experienced by countless families. We deeply wish for the immediate return of the hostages and a swift conclusion to the war. And while we are mindful of all of these challenges, we are optimistic about the future and the prospect of more peaceful days ahead.

I am grateful for the partnership of the vice presidents as well as the academic and administrative leadership and staff whose hard work has helped us get us to where we are today. I thank all of you for being part of the Weizmann family and for contributing to the success of the last five years. I look forward with anticipation and excitement to the next five, and wish all of us great success.
With all best wishes,
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