The Bedouin Center was formed in 1998 in order to promote education within the Bedouin society of the Negev. Additional functions of the center include serving as a liaison unit between the Ben-Gurion University and the Bedouin community and serving as a platform to study the Bedouin heritage, the changes taking place within the Negev Bedouin society, and the challenges facing it, through academic research and public discussion. The center attaches great importance to the involvement of educated sons and daughters of the Bedouin community in research, debate and decision-making concerning societal difficulties of the Bedouin. For this purpose, special emphasis has been placed on providing higher education opportunities for Bedouin students, helping them academically and financially. Over the last decade, the provision by the Bedouin center of tuition grants for female Bedouin students and the activation of a variety of programs, has led to more than two hundred Bedouin girls graduating their studies in various departments. A number of them have continued to study for higher degrees. These figures can be compared to the single digit number of female graduates before the foundation of the center. Currently, approximately 400 Bedouin students are studying at Ben-Gurion University, approximately 250 of which are female students and approximately 120 are male students.

During 2009, the university decided to streamline the center’s activities and transferred some of functions fulfilled by the center to various units within the university. For example, the responsibility of granting scholarships to students was transferred to the Dean of students office, and various academic preparatory programs were transferred to the Center of Pre-Academic studies in the University. Thus, from the beginning of school year 2009-10, the Center has begun to focus principally on research regarding the Negev Bedouin community.

Following are the Center’s aims, as detailed in its new policy:

Initiate and promote research activity on: education, society, economics, history, and health related to the Arab-Bedouin community.

Encourage Bedouin research students and support them academically and financially.

Initiate national and international seminars and conferences for presentation of research papers and discussions on issues related to the Bedouin community.

Invite international scholars to visit the center.

Initiate cooperation with institutes, centers, associations and local councils in Bedouin communities, in order to promote research on issues relevant to the activities of these bodies.

Publish research papers supported by the Center, and other research papers discussing issues related to the Bedouin community.

Create databases and publish a unique statistical yearbook of the Negev Bedouin population.

Create a database for publications relating the Bedouin society.

Offer programs to promote empowerment of Bedouin students.

Each year, the center announces a call to researchers to submit research proposals for research topics relevant to the Bedouin community. These proposals are evaluated by the center’s research committee and by external reviewers. The winners receive research grants from the Center. The Center, in cooperation with The Negev Center for Regional Development of Ben-Gurion University, is currently working on publishing the third statistical yearbook of the Negev Bedouin population, towards the end of 2010. The Center, together with The Negev Regional Center for Research and Development had built an electronic database of research on the Bedouin community. This electronic database contains a detailed bibliographical list of professional publications relating to the Bedouin community. This unique database contains large quantities of material about the Bedouin community, and thus facilitates research on areas of concern to this community.  The database is available on this website.

The Center encourages male and female students to take an active part in its activities, through the submission of proposals for cooperation and active participation in conferences held by the center, as well as by encouraging the students to participate in the Center’s various other activities.