Engineering Faculty Rebranded as “Decision Sciences”

By Ariel Grossman, NoCamels January 19, 2023 2 minutes

The Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, says the new name reflects a change in its DNA over the last 20 years. Courtesy

A university’s engineering department has been rebranded as the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences.

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, says the new name reflects a change in its DNA over the last 20 years.

“Over the past two decades, the Faculty has changed its research focus and curriculum, and as a result, the former name no longer reflects most of the staff, students, and alumni,” said Faculty Dean Prof. Rann Smorodinsky.

“The new name accurately represents the change that has occurred in the Faculty’s DNA and will help us attract outstanding students and young academic staff, as well as in building collaborations with relevant industries.”

The newly-named faculty – formerly the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management – teaches more than 1,000 students.

Its disciplines include probability, information systems, game theory, marketing and finance, databases and AI, computational learning, and cognition.

When the faculty was first established as a separate academic unit in 1958, it was focused on industrial engineering, operations research, economics, statistics, psychology, and sociology.

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Since then, it has undergone numerous changes, including the introduction of the new disciplines and staff members.

During those decades, the Israeli economy underwent significant changes as well: it went from focusing on agriculture to becoming the Start-Up Nation.

And all over the world, including in Israel, two major revolutions erupted – the information systems revolution and the fourth industrial revolution, connecting management and data, computing, and industry.

That said, the faculty will continue to support the studies of industrial engineering and management.

Technion President Professor Uri Sivan said: “One of the technological challenges that Israel must prepare for is the data revolution – a revolution that is transforming work processes and decision-making processes in every sphere: industry, finance, security, and many others.

“The Technion, spearheaded by the newly named Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences, is preparing to address this challenge.”