Self Conversation in Virtual Reality Embodiment to Enhance Healthier Lifestyles Among Obese People (Socrates)
About the project: The goal of this new H2020 is to develop virtual reality technologies for enhancing healthier lifestyles, and experimental evidence with clinical populations (mostly obese people). The main innovation is developing technologies that will allow to engage in conversations with virtual clones of oneself in VR, including clones that have gone through some […]
Cross-Border State of Emergency: Management of the Coronavirus Crisis in Israel and the Palestinian Territories
Abstract The Coronavirus crisis is forcing the Israeli authorities to deal with unprecedented challenges in extraordinary ways, by unusual means and under two, and possibly even three, different legal regimes (Israel, Judea & Samaria and Gaza). The discussion will be attuned to the characteristics of each system: emergency management in Israel – a modern democracy […]
Rediscovering the lost Penfield homunculus contribute to understand the links between Body and Mind
Abstract: In 1954, Penfield and Jasper’s findings based on electric stimulation of epileptic patients led them to hypothesize that a sensory representation of the body should be found in the precuneus. They termed this representation the “supplementary sensory” area and emphasized that the exact form of this homunculus could not be specified on the basis […]
Tell me who you are and I will tell you which SNS you use: SNSs participation
Abstract: Social networking sites (SNSs) have become an essential part of our lives. The purpose of this paper is to explore how demographic variables, SNS importance, social and informational usage, and personality traits (extroversion/introversion, openness, neuroticism, internal and external locus of control) can explain participation frequency of the four biggest SNSs in Israel: Facebook, WhatsApp, […]
ERC Starting Grant “Homomorphic Secret Sharing: Secure Computation and Beyond”
IDC Herzliya congratulates Dr. Elette Boyle, senior lecturer and researcher at the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science, for winning a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant. The grant targets early-career researchers with potential for excellent frontier research, and provides research funding of up to €1.5 million over five years. Dr. Boyle was […]
The Researcher-Practitioner Paradox: The Case of First versus Second-mover Advantage in Negotiation
Yossi Maaravi’s latest Israel Science Foundation-funded research project explores an existing paradox between first and second-mover advantage in a negotiation setting. Literature on behavioral decision-making and negotiations to date usually advocates a first-mover advantage in negotiations and bases this preference on the anchoring heuristic. However, recent research describes a Practitioner-Researcher Paradox, where negotiation practitioners […]
Prof. Gil Kalai from Efi Arazi School of Computer Science wins ERC Grant
IDC Herzliya congratulates Professor Gil Kalai, senior lecturer and researcher at the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science, for winning the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant which is part of Horizon 2020 — the biggest R&D initiative of the EU. Professor Kalai’s research deals with the development of different methods such as noise sensitivity and stability in […]
Why Humans Make Sex So Complicated
The paradox of sex: a source of life and pleasure, pain and shame, beauty and destruction – how do we make sense of the mixed emotions of sexuality? Gurit Birnbaum, head of the Sexuality in Close Relationships Lab at the IDC, has been exploring our multi-faceted relationship with sex. In her fascinating TEDx talk, she […]
Media Innovation Lab Transforming How We Interact With Robots
Many exciting projects at IDC’s Media Innovation Lab (miLAB) are shaping the way people interact with robots. The Human Computer Interaction Research and Prototyping Lab is part of the school of Communications. It was originally led by Oren Zuckerman, Noa Morag, and Guy Hoffman, and has now grown to a team of six faculty members […]
Leveraging Anger
Anger is a powerful emotion that can be directed constructively or destructively depending on the context and the motivation of the parties involved. Unlike other emotions, anger has a high level of efficacy and certainty, meaning, the person experiencing anger feels a strong urge to act– a drive to somehow alleviate or correct the injustice […]
Project RECONNECT Aims to Build a New Narrative for the EU
Recent unrest in the European Union, caused by the financial and economic crisis, increasing migration and threat posed by terrorism, has led to a crisis of legitimacy within the Union. In search of understanding and reconciliation between the EU citizens and its government, RECONNECT aims to build a new, citizen-centered narrative for the […]
Guess Who?
If you were shown a photograph of a face and asked to match it with a name out of four options, what are the chances you’d guess correct? Turns out that 30% to 40% of the time you would guess correctly. In a study that spanned several years, the results are striking: we do look […]
IDC Project studying the Dynamics of Political Agendas Receives Prestigious Grant
Dr. Amnon Cavari and Dr. Maoz Rosenthal of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy together with Dr. Ilana Shpaizman of Bar Ilan University have received a prestigious four year grant from the Israel Science Foundation to study the policy agenda in Israel (CAP-IL). CAP-IL will collect and code data on all branches of […]
Re-Examining the Rules of Attraction
Many are familiar with the emotional rollercoaster that comes with a new romantic relationship – the teenage years come rushing by as we reminisce on our first crush and the vulnerability of being the first to show interest – the fear of rejection is unbearable! Today, with the plethora of dating apps, reliving those […]
Promoting Intergroup Openness
It comes as no surprise that hearing someone talk bad about their own group creates division and hostility among that group; yet an outsider who overhears someone criticizing their own group may have more interest to tune in – indeed, research carried out by Tamar Saguy, Associate Professor at the Baruch Ivcher School of […]
EU-LISTCO Analyzes Resilience and Threats in EU Region
EU-LISTCO is a project funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 program that aims to investigate the challenges posed to European foreign policy by identifying risks connected to areas of limited statehood and contested orders. Areas of limited statehood are regions where the central government authorities lack the power to enforce laws against pervasive violence. […]
Environmental Economics Research at IDC
Dr. Shiri Zemah Shamir is an Environmental Economist at the IDC School of Sustainability. Her work delves into topics such as shark tourism and ecosystem services assessment in the sea and terrestrial ecosystems. It helps that her husband is a Marine Biologist and a keen collaborator. When asked about the implications of her […]
A Project with China Studying Urban Effects on Lightning
The Israel Science Foundation (ISF) and the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) recently awarded a grant for a collaborative project with IDC’s Dean of the School of Sustainability, Prof. Yoav Yair, and Professor Xiushu Qie of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Atmospheric Physics. The project is titled, […]
Virtual Reality Research at IDC
Exciting things are happening at the IDC Advanced Virtuality Lab. In a conversation with Dr. Doron Friedman who is head of the lab and a Senior Lecturer in the Sammy Ofer School of Communications, we got a glimpse of where virtual reality research is headed. Friedman has recently been awarded a grant by […]
A revealing study on how our brain responds to friends and enemies in an atmosphere of conflict
When we think about some of the largest intergroup conflict between different groups and races, it is likely that we automatically attribute the conflict to politics – a lack of consensus that results in fighting and an “us vs. them” mentality. But what about the individuals who are caught up in these conflicts? How are […]
IDC Lauder School of Government awarded a large grant by EU’s biggest project for research and innovation, Horizon 2020
Two risks characterize the European Union’s regional and global security environments: Areas of limited statehood (ALS) in the EU’s East and South, in which central government authorities are too weak to enforce rules and/or do not control the monopoly over the means of violence. Contested orders (CO), in which various actors challenge the […]
IDC Coordinates Two New Projects Co-Funded by the Erasmus+ Program
The IDC Office of Research and Global Engagement has recently undertaken two projects that will significantly contribute to the higher education community. As part of the greater Erasmus+ Program of the EU, the goal of TeachEx and Silice is to collaborate with universities and social enterprises to create innovative solutions to constantly changing educational needs. […]
ICT Awarded a Large Grant for the RED-Alert Project and TRIVALENT
The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), as part of an international consortium, was awarded two grants totaling about 500,000$ by the prestigious Horizon2020 Program of the European Union. Members of the consortium include half a dozen of law enforcement agencies, technology companies, research centers and universities. The RED-Alert project will bring data mining and predictive […]
Responsiveness is Key: ask Travis, the Robot
The idea of a robot becoming a household fixture that performs regular service tasks is accepted by most and even used by many, with products such as Amazon’s Alexa penetrating the market with great force. Asking a robot to switch off the light or bring you a Latte Macchiato is hardly a remarkable feature — […]
How Exposure to Incongruent Messages in Food Advertisements Affects Adolescents’ Body Image
You don’t need to be addicted to watching America’s Next Top Model to know what a model looks like: thin and beautiful. You also probably don’t need to be told that a model’s diet mostly consists of celery and carrots. No model would be caught dead with ice cream dripping off her chin, or […]
The Feedforward Interview: An Innovative Performance Review
Organizations, first and foremost, are made up of individuals, who come together with a common goal – the success of which largely depends on the engagement and performance of its employees. Despite the weight that is placed on performance, it remains a vaguely defined term that is thrown around without much understanding of how […]
Think Inside the Box
It may come as a big surprise to most of us that creativity is not as innate and mysterious as it seems. After all, isn’t thinking outside the box and generating new ideas the way of the future for any organization that wants to have an edge in an already over-saturated market? Isn’t the […]
Recent Achievement in Computer Science: IDC Collaboration Awarded Best Paper CRYPTO 2016
“Breaking the Circuit-Size Barrier for Secure Computation under DDH”, is the collaborative research work of Elette Boyle, a Senior Lecturer in the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science at IDC, Niv Gilboa (Ben Gurion University) and Yuval Ishai (Technion & UCLA). The paper introduces a new approach to a fascinating area of cryptographic applications and […]

Researcher’s Night at IDC
This is the second year IDC campus has opened its gates for Researcher’s Night; A special evening dedicated to introducing families to exciting fields in science, organized by the EU and locally sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Science, Technology & Space. This year IDC joined the Israeli consortium along with members from universities, regional […]

Rethinking Intimacy and Desire
New relationships usually come with strong attraction and high sexual desire, but low levels of intimacy and security. In time, sexual desire slowly dwindles down and makes way for a stable bond. The problem is, that while desire and the resulting physical interaction promotes familiarity and security, in time they fade to a more comfortable […]
PROMOTING EXCELLENCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A SPECIAL EU PROJECT FOR TEACHERS
Every single one of us can probably look back and remember this one teacher we had, that made a real impact on us. Usually, this model teacher is someone who took the time to understand our needs, and was able to modify their “grown-up” perspective to our point of view. They gave us a sense […]

Anxiety: a pain or a survival necessity?
We assume that anxiety is a handicap, some inhibiting factor of life that we have to overcome. But what if it was proven that anxiety is not just a benefit, but a personality trait necessary for survival? That is exactly what IDC’s Tsachi Ein-Dor and his colleagues have shown in a series of studies comparing […]
Announcing a special workshop event: New Directions in Decision Making Research: An Italian-Israeli Workshop
Sponsored by: The Italian Embassy in Israel, The Israel Italy Chamber of Commerce, and DICE at IDC Herzliya When and Where: June 1st, 2016; at the IDC campus, Psychology building room PE204 The workshop will gather Italian and Israeli researchers working on the behavioral and brain bases of economic psychology and judgment and decision-making. […]

Making Changes Today That Will Benefit Us Tomorrow
In today’s threat of dangerous climate change, it is vital that we decrease our carbon emissions, through both reducing out energy demand and amplifying the usage of low carbon sources of energy. Dr. Yael Parag, a senior lecturer at IDC’s School of Sustainability, is actively seeking means for us to achieve these goals, through […]

Fascinating Discovery About Ancient Neanderthals
Fascinating Discovery About Ancient Neanderthals IDC Researcher: Ilan Gronau Department: Computer Science Links: (published research) link at nature.com In the press: link at nytimes.com link at haaretz.com Images: Denisova Cave Entrance: Photo Credit, Bence Viola Denisova Neanderthal Toe Bone: Photo Credit: Bence Viola IDC computer scientist, along with researchers and specialists around the globe, […]

Zvi Meitar Institute for Legal Implications of Emerging Technologies
Exhilarating things are happening at the Zvi Meitar Institute for Legal Implications of Emerging Technologies. Established in 2014 and named after its donor and founder, the program provides students and the community at large with the opportunity to explore the legal, ethical, and social challenges of new and
The Temperature Premium
Today there are so many ways that stores try to entice us to spend our money. Advertising gimmicks lure us in, smells and colors tickle our senses, and gadgets and toys keep us in places like the Apple Store all day. It is increasingly difficult to exercise will power and keep shopping temptations at bay. On top of all that, there can be other factors affecting our willingness to shop