The United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) is a
grant-awarding institution that promotes
collaborative
Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. The f ...
research in a wide range of basic and
applied scientific disciplines, established in 1972 by an agreement between the governments of the United States and Israel. Numerous scientists participating in BSF programs have won prestigious awards such as the
Nobel,
Lasker and
Wolf
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, includin ...
prizes. The Foundation grant recipients include 43 Nobel Prize laureates, 19 winners of the
Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, and 38 recipients of the Wolf Prize.
[Examples of a few of the many BSF grantee prizewinners are:
*the 2006 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award to ]Elizabeth Blackburn
Elizabeth Helen Blackburn (born 26 November 1948) is an Australian-American Nobel laureate who is the former president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. In 1984, Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the ...
(BSF grantee), Carol Greider
Carolyn Widney Greider (born April 15, 1961) is an American molecular biologist and Nobel laureate. She is a Distinguished Professor of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Greider discovered ...
, and Jack Szostak
Jack William Szostak (born November 9, 1952) is a Canadian American biologist of Polish British descent, Nobel Prize laureate, university professor at the University of Chicago, former professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, and Alexan ...
for the prediction and discovery of telomerase
Telomerase, also called terminal transferase, is a ribonucleoprotein that adds a species-dependent telomere repeat sequence to the 3' end of telomeres. A telomere is a region of repetitive sequences at each end of the chromosomes of most euka ...
The Lasker Foundation
*the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, acco ...
winners Richard Axel
Richard Axel (born July 2, 1946) is an American molecular biologist and university professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His work on the olfactory system won h ...
(BSF grantee) and Linda B. Buck; and 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...
to Aaron Ciechanover
Aaron Ciechanover ( ; ; born October 1, 1947) is an Israeli biologist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for characterizing the method that cells use to degrade and recycle proteins using ubiquitin.
Biography
Early life
Ciechanover was born ...
(BSF grantee)
All Nobel Prize Laureates
*the 2008 Wolf Prize
The Wolf Prize is an international award granted in Israel, that has been presented most years since 1978 to living scientists and artists for "achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people ... irrespective of natio ...
in medicine to Aaron Razin (BSF grantee) and Howard Cedar
Howard Chaim Cedar (; born January 12, 1943) is an Israeli American biochemist who works on DNA methylation, a mechanism that turns genes on and off.
Early life and education
Howard Chaim Cedar was born in the United States. He received a bache ...
Wolf Foundation Prizes in Medicine
and the 2005 Wolf Prize in mathematics to Gregory A. Margulis (BSF grantee) and Sergei Novikov
Wolf Foundation Prizes in Mathematics.
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Funding and structure
The BSF's income is derived from interest on an endowment of $100 million which was established in equal parts by the United States and Israeli governments. The organization is governed by a Board of Governors
A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency.
The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulations ...
consisting of five American and five Israeli members, appointed by their respective governments. The BSF's base of operations
Headquarters (often referred to as HQ) notes the location where most or all of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. The term is used in a wide variety of situations, including private sector corporations, non-profits, mil ...
is in Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
.
Grants
Grants are awarded on a competitive, peer-reviewed
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
basis, a process juried by scientists from the United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
and around the world. To be eligible for consideration, grant requests must be of outstanding scientific quality and demonstrate substantive collaboration between American and Israeli principal investigators. They must be for peaceful purposes and conducted under the aegis of not-for-profit
A not-for-profit or non-for-profit organization (NFPO) is a Legal Entity, legal entity that does not distribute surplus funds to its members and is formed to fulfill specific objectives.
While not-for-profit organizations and Nonprofit organ ...
institutions such as universities, research institute
A research institute, research centre, or research organization is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often implies natural ...
s and governmental bodies.
Memorial Awards
;The Bergmann Memorial Award
:The award for ''promising young scientists'', established in February 1976, to honor professor E.D. Bergmann ( - 1975), an organic chemistry researcher and one of the leaders who established the BSF.
;The Neufeld Memorial Award
:The award on ''new projects in the health sciences'', established in 1987, to honor professor Henry Neufeld ( - December 1986), the chief scientist of the Israel Ministry of Health, and the founder and director of the Cardiac Clinic in Sheba Medical Center
Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer (), also known as Tel HaShomer Hospital, is the largest hospital in Israel, located in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan in the Tel HaShomer neighborhood, Israel. In 2025, ''Newsweek'' ranked it as ...
.
;The Pazy Memorial Award
:The award on ''new projects in the mathematical sciences'', established in 2007, to honor professor Amnon Pazy
Amnon Pazy (; 10 January 1936 – 17 August 2006) was an Israeli mathematician who specialized in partial differential equations (PDE), making important contributions to the PDE field and Semigroups. He served as president of the Hebrew Universi ...
( - August 2006), a mathematician, the presidency of Hebrew University
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. It is the second-ol ...
, and the chairperson of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education VATAT.
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:United States - Israel Binational Science Foundation
Science and technology in Israel
Science and technology in the United States
Funding bodies
Israel–United States relations
Scientific research foundations