​The Swiss Institute for Dryland Environmental and Energy Research (SIDEER), one of the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, was conceived based on a bold vision: to develop a basic scientific approach to synthetic study of arid environments and the peoples who inhabit them.

The scientists of the SIDEER study all facets of the interdependencies between the physical environment, natural and human created – technological, and life in this environment. This includes the study of dryland ecosystems and the patterns these systems follow, the ecology of animals and plants at all levels - individual, population, community and landscape; the physical basics of acquisition, use and storage of natural resources, such as solar energy and advanced environmental technologies.

In line with this vision, SIDEER is the first-ever institute bringing together ecologists, physicists and mathematicians under a single roof for the purpose of a fundamental desert research.​