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Innuaguaral address by Professor Itamar Rabinovich, President of Tel Aviv University, May 2002

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening.
A major and comprehensive research and teaching institution, Tel Aviv University has proudly undertaken to develop the Dan David Prize together with the Dan David Foundation.

Tel Aviv University is a thriving, vibrant institution that is striving for excellence. Some four decades after its establishment, the University occupies a large beautiful campus, in the hub of the country, with nine faculties and dozens of schools and departments that conduct international advanced research, in addition to undergraduate and graduate teaching. It embraces a range of disciplines from music, art, law, and the humanities - to the social sciences and management - to engineering, science, and medicine. The university has become a global presence, hosting numerous international conferences and scientific meetings. Our dynamic interdisciplinary teaching and research is conducted in a country where the past converges with the present, and both are always challenging the future. That spirit of exceptional intellectual endeavor, which sees the connection between progress, vision and history, is well reflected and furthered by the Dan David Prize.

Excellence is elusive and transitory, difficult to attain, and easy to lose. As a university we are committed to the many endeavors that the Dan David Prize symbolizes and propels - knowledge, creativity, ingenuity, innovation, and excellence in fields that expand our exploration of the past, enrich our society today, and enable us to improve our world in the future. The Dan David Prize will have other positive effects. It offers scholarships based on considerations of social justice and excellence, as part of the prize grant. The scholarships primarily aim to encourage the younger generation of scholars, and to strengthen their connections with Tel Aviv University. Further, the University, its faculty, and students will be involved in a nexus of academic activities linked to the prize - such as conferences, workshops, colloquia, and other intellectual, research, and educational activities.

We should strive for innovative research that cuts across traditional boundaries of investigation. This includes existing disciplines together with emerging fields and interdisciplinary realms. We should encourage traditional scholarship as well as new and innovative fields in high-tech and artificial intelligence, sub-molecular research, environmental studies, international communication, genetics, biotechnology, ethics and law in a new millennium, and other path-breaking interdisciplinary domains of inquiry concerning the past, present, and future.

The Dan David Prize does not only encourage pure research. We would like to recognize people and organizations with highly important contributions that serve the public. This is what the Dan David Prize and Tel Aviv University aim to stimulate through an annual award for exceptional achievements. This is why the prizes are internationally unprecedented in scope and diversity. The joint project of Tel Aviv University and the Dan David Foundation may, therefore, become a source of hope for greater humanity and enhanced understanding of our world and our surroundings.