Background
As the biggest - oldest university in Palestine with more than 100-year history, An-Najah National University was founded in 1918 as the An-Najah Nabulsi School. In 1977, An-Najah evolved into a full-fledged university, “An-Najah National University,” with a Faculty of Humanities and a Faculty of Sciences.
An-Najah National University is a comprehensive confessional public, non-profit communitarian university guided by ethics, religion and principles. It has the mission of the development and dissemination of knowledge and culture and the promotion of comprehensive and permanent qualification of citizens and professionals committed to life and to the progress of the society.
Education with a humanistic approach coupled with intellectual engagement is present at An-Najah National University throughout its 5 campuses within the State of Palestine. The 5 campuses are: the New Campus, the Old Campus, the Hisham Hijjawi College of Technology, the Kadoorie Campus in Tulkarm, which offers agriculture and veterinary medicine programs and the An-Najah National University Hospital, a non-profit medical institution and the only teaching hospital in Palestine that provides clinical education and training to future and current health professionals. On the academic side, the University is home to 4 libraries, which hold more than 600,000 books in total. There are also renowned arts, scientific and cultural museums.
Currently, the University offers over 128 undergraduate programs, 78 master's degree programs and 13 doctoral programs across 12 faculties: Medicine and Health Sciences, Engineering and Information Technology, Sciences, Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Educational Sciences and Teachers' Training, Economics and Social Sciences, Humanities, Shariah (Islamic Law), Fine Arts, Law and Graduate Studies Faculty. It also offers 6 diploma degree programs, and more than 12 professional certificate programs, in addition to technical and continuing education programs. The University has also pioneered several innovative academic programs, which include student exchange, entrepreneurial internships, as well as double and joint degree programs with some of the world’s best universities.
As an international university, An-Najah is a community of more than 24,000 students, 1900 staff, and more than 86,000 alumni from 50 countries. Together, they work across boundaries and disciplines to tackle the world’s biggest challenges as the University’s social and environmental impact is ranked in the top 300 globally (Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2023).
An-Najah National University is committed to supporting evidence-based solutions through its teaching, scientific research production, and offered services that are consistent with the important work of fulfilling the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030. By utilizing the academic body and material resources, it provides and participates in scientific research at the international level and responds to the needs of the local society by offering support through a plethora of social and technical programs and maintenance and improvement of its educational standards.
The University’s multidisciplinary and real-world approach to education, research and entrepreneurship enables it to work closely with industry, governments and academia to address crucial and complex issues relevant to the Palestinian community. Researchers at the University and its research institutes focus on themes that include energy, environmental and urban sustainability, treatment and prevention of diseases, risk management, resilience of financial systems, using data science, and operations research. An-Najah also strives to create a supportive and innovative environment to promote creative enterprise within its community as it has 12 Nobel laureates among its staff, and it was ranked first for Research Power, which is the quality and scale of research and impact among the Palestinian universities.
As for centers of expertise, the University includes Energy, Water and Food Security Research Center, Urban Planning and Disaster Risk Reduction Center, Economic Development and Social Research Center, Medical and Health Sciences Research Center, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality Research Center, Neuroscience Center Biography, and An-Najah Center for Cancer and Stem Cell Research.
Intense international cooperation and mobility programs carried out with international partner institutions are important elements of the University strategy of institutional development. The University is a well-consolidated university known nationwide as one of the best higher education institutions in Palestine. An-Najah invests massively in faculty development and infrastructure, which provides support to the educational activities. Examples include practical training centers, research laboratories, career services, center of innovation, farms, community outreach projects, integrated library system, a hospital, radio stations and a TV station.
In addition, An-Najah National University is a member of the International Association of University (IAU), the Association of Arab Universities (AArU), the Federation of the Universities of the Islamic World (FUIW), the Community of Mediterranean Universities (CMU), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Association for Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER), the American Chemical Society (ACS), the International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO), the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF),and the Mediterranean Universities Union.
As a pivotal institution in Palestine, it is vital that An-Najah continues to inspire its student body to realize their own potential and have a positive impact of the society in which they reside. By equipping them with the essential tools of knowledge, professionalism and leadership, An-Najah believes that students’ personal development will create a more prosperous future for Palestine.
“We Challenge the Present to Shape the Future” is the thought-provoking motto of the An-Najah National University. This motto enigmatically encapsulates this famous institution’s mission to advance knowledge in science, technology and areas of scholarship that can help make the world a better place.
