During his final year as prime minister, 1963, Ben Gurion put forward his vision of a university in the small Negev city of Beersheba — “an Oxford in the Negev.”
In 1969, the University of the Negev opened. After Ben Gurion’s death in 1973, it was renamed “Ben-Gurion University of the Negev” (BGU).
Ben Gurion’s notion that the Negev would, could and should play a crucial role in Israel’s future remains a driving force that is being carried forward fervently by BGU’s current president Prof. Daniel Chamovitz.