Foundation / Corporation
United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF)
01/05/18 NSF Deadline (USA applicants); 01/11/18 5:00 PM Israel Time BSF Deadline (Israel Applicants)
Grants to USA, Israel, Germany, France, and Japan researchers affiliated with IHEs, nonprofits, government agencies, and hospitals for collaborative research on computational neuroscience. USA applicants are strongly encouraged to contact program staff prior to applying.
Applications must involve a computational aspect, but can also involve empirical work. For example, examines a computational model or shows that the theoretical or analytical approach is on solid ground. Thus, the competition is open to neuroscientists and other scientists who are not classical computational neuroscientists if they are engaged in appropriate collaborations and their study is relevant to the program.
Research projects must be grounded in Biology (as opposed, e.g., to studies pertaining only to artificial neural networks).
Applications must clearly demonstrate the added value of the cooperation between the partners.
Starting this year, applications in Data Sharing Proposals between U.S. and Israeli PIs will be accepted. Please note that the term “data sharing” may be somewhat misleading, and projects that develop new tools for computational neuroscience are central to this part of the solicitation.
Applications must be submitted jointly by an Israeli, and an U.S. scientist from a U.S. research institution. Starting in this round, addition of French and/or German and/or Japanese scientists to the proposal to form a multinational proposal is also allowed.
Cooperative Research:
Cooperative research is a fundamental requirement for the BSF and is viewed by the foundation as active collaboration between Israeli and American scientists. A joint research program must be presented in the form of a single, coordinated application, in which the roles and tasks of the respective partners are clearly defined. Each application should have at least two principal investigators (but not more than six), one from an Israeli institution and one from a U.S. institution.
Cooperation should involve joint planning of research and evaluation of results, and may take the form of:
-Joint research activities where interdependent projects of a single program are conducted in different laboratories and may involve shared funding or different sources of funding.
-Provision of research facilities, materials, equipment and/or services to cooperating scientists.
-Exchange of personnel.
Although not mandatory, the BSF expects that if the research leads to publications, they will be authored jointly by the Israeli and American PIs, expressing the collaborative nature of the work.
BSF support may cover the following expenses:
Salaries:
The BSF may audit payments made to individuals working in the framework of the grant. Accordingly, the applicant should consult his institution and, if necessary, the institution should have such employees sign a salary disclosure.
Principal Investigators: Principal investigators are not entitled to receive any part of their salary or supplement to their salary from the BSF. This rule applies also to Research Associates who draw their salaries from external sources.
Other Scientists: No scientist on the full-time paid staff of the grantee institution may receive any salary or supplement to salary from a BSF grant. In the case of a scientist employed part-time by the institution, a salary may be paid commensurate with the time to be devoted to the project, provided that such salary, together with the institution's salary, does not exceed 100%. A consultant is not allowed to receive part of his salary from the grant if he is a permanent employee of a research institution.
Auxiliary Personnel: The salaries of technicians may be paid in proportion to the time devoted to the project. Their proposed roles in the project should be outlined and names given when known. For technicians who are full-time permanent employees, grantee institutions may charge the grant for time spent on the project, up to 50% of the technician’s salary.
Permanent Specific Equipment:
Applications to the BSF may include requests to purchase specific equipment required for the proposed project. The term “specific equipment” implies non-general purpose or non-purely instructional equipment. Equipment purchased with BSF funds belongs to the BSF and should be marked accordingly. Upon termination of a project for which equipment is purchased, the BSF will leave the equipment in the institution where the research was conducted. The BSF does not have a separate allocation for equipment and the BSF will not fund grants where the main expenditure is equipment. The BSF may share in the purchase of specific equipment with the grantee institution, or with other granting agencies.
Supplies:
Requests for supplies should be stated in general terms with a listing of the estimated cost. Where substantial funds are requested, a more detailed breakdown is required.
Industrial Subcontractors:
Industrial subcontractors who supply services for the research are allowed if the expense is part of the approved budget.
Travel Expenses Abroad:
The BSF was established to enhance the cooperation in research between American and Israeli researchers. We believe that in order to advance the cooperation and to advance the research in both the U.S. and Israel that it is important for the scientists to meet in person. Therefore, the BSF will allocate money for travel of an investigator or a member of his research team to the other country; that is, travel funds will be provided to allow investigators to work together at one of the institutions, or meet at a conference, but only in the U.S. or Israel. In order for the meeting to be supported by the BSF it must be substantial. Only meetings of at least two full days duration, not including weekends and holidays, will be supported. Meetings at conferences or other locations outside of the investigator's institutions require prior written approval of the BSF. In this program, the allowance may be used only by members of the Israeli research team. The application should indicate for whom a proposed trip is intended. BSF approves travel in economy class only and will cover per diem expenses only for the days spent together at the approved locations. Please note that if an investigator requests travel money only, he should not submit a separate budget request form, but add this travel amount to the initiator's budget (these travel expenses will be reimbursed through the initiator's institution). The BSF will not pay for travel to countries other than Israel and the U.S. unless stated in the research proposal and specifically approved by the BSF prior to travel. The BSF will not pay the costs of conference registration. BSF policy is that only cheapest fare economy tickets with fixed-date fares may be charged to the grant.
Monies budgeted for travel are restricted to travel and cannot be used to cover other budget line items without prior approval of the BSF.
Other Expenses:
Page and color charges, up to $500 per grant, will be allowed for joint publications of the applicants. Miscellaneous expenses are considered by the BSF on a case-by-case basis.
Overhead (OH):
A total of 15% overhead on all budget items is allowed.
Price Increases:
Anticipated price increases should not be taken into consideration when preparing the budgets for subsequent years. This applies to all items, including salaries. The BSF will calculate increases according to its own scales when preparing second- and third- year budgets, taking into consideration the availability of BSF funds.
GrantWatch ID#: 176064
Total maximum combined amount of grants to all partners is limited to $250,000/year, excluding overhead and travel budgets (there is no difference in the maximum sum if the project is binational or multinational.).
The size of the grant to the Israeli is expected to be larger than traditional BSF grants, possibly up to $70,000/year for experimental studies and $40,000/year for theoretical and computer based studies. These sums are subject to the availability of funds.
Payments to the Israeli PI will be made in NIS, but in the application the budget should be presented in U.S. currency, using cost estimates prevailing at the time of preparation.
Multi-year funding is available.
Grant period for the Israeli will follow that requested by his U.S. partner.
Eligibility:
1. For the BSF submission: Israeli and American principal investigators must have obtained a PhD, MD or an equivalent degree, and must be faculty members or the equivalent of the submitting institutions. Graduate students or postgraduate fellows are not eligible to submit applications.
2. Scientists who wish to apply for grants must submit their applications through a legal entity. The BSF accepts research applications from nonprofit organizations only, including institutions of higher learning, government research institutions and hospitals. Although applications cannot be submitted by for-profit or industrial organizations, one of the principal investigators may be affiliated with such an organization. However, the research performed by the investigator affiliated with a for-profit organization will not be funded by the BSF, unless specified differently.
3. The Israeli investigators should be familiar with BSF patent policy before completing the collaborative arrangements. You can read about the Patent Rights in the sample Grant Agreement file, available to download from the ‘Guidelines & Forms’ Section of the BSF website.
4. According to the agreement between the U.S. and Israeli governments, projects sponsored by the Foundation may not be conducted in geographic areas which came under the administration of the Government of Israel after June 5, 1967 and may not relate to subjects primarily pertinent to such areas. Furthermore, the BSF reserves the right to reject applications involving, directly or indirectly, the Arab-Israeli conflict, if in its sole discretion it deems such applications not to be consistent with the mission of the foundation. In addition, any application that is related to any aspect of the Arab- Israeli conflict should be discussed with the BSF staff before submission.
5. The following additional rules apply to this program:
-Each Israeli scientist is allowed to submit only a single proposal. Moreover, a scientist who has any pending NSF-BSF application, or has any active NSF-BSF grant that is not in its last year, is not allowed to submit an application to this program
-Israeli scientists will be allowed to submit both to an NSF-BSF program and the regular BSF program, including similar applications. In the event that they are awarded a grant in both programs, they will be funded in both, unless the research application is mostly similar, in which case only their NSF-BSF program will be funded.
-In case of similar NSF-BSF and regular BSF applications, in which the NSF evaluation was not completed by the time the regular BSF awards are made, the BSF will defer its decision regarding a possible grant to this application, until the NSF-BSF awards are announced.
The CRCNS program is managed by the NSF, but is joined also by the NIH, and is also open to German, French and Japanese scientists.
Prior cooperation between the PIs is not a prerequisite, and the establishment of new research teams is welcomed by the BSF.
The BSF only supports research conducted in adequately equipped laboratories. The BSF will not fund infrastructure or purchasing of standard equipment.
If awarded a grant, the U.S. scientist will receive a grant from the NSF, or the NIH, while the Israeli scientist will receive a grant from the BSF.
The U.S. scientist (only) will submit to the NSF using its regulations:
http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=gpg
The U.S. PI is strongly advised to call the NSF Program Officer and discuss with him the research topic and personal eligibility, before starting the submission.
The BSF website will be open for submission of applications on December 1st, 2017. For information about the NSF submission, follow the instructions of the NSF.
Proposals to the BSF will be submitted after the U.S. scientist has submitted his proposal to the NSF, and will include a PDF of the full proposal that was submitted to the NSF.
Full proposals should be submitted to the BSF by the Israeli scientist only, and by the research authorities of all Israelis requesting funding no later than 5:00 PM (Israel time) on January 11, 2018 (NSF deadline is January 5, 2018).
Applications should be written in English.
Before starting your grant application, please review the funding source's website listed below for updates/changes/addendums/conferences/LOIs.
USA applicants must apply to NSF through FastLane:
https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov
Israel applicants must apply through BSF:
http://www.bsf.org.il/ElectronicSubmission/Default.aspx
Questions by the Israeli regarding the applicability of a proposed research for this program should be directed by the U.S. partner to the program officer at the NSF.
Other questions regarding this special NSF-BSF program can be discussed with the BSF management by mail or phone:
Dr. Rachel (Heni) Haring
972-2-5828239 ext. 110
heni@bsf.org.il
Ms. Yael Dressler
972-2-5828239 ext. 103
yael@bsf.org.il
Questions regarding the online application system should be directed to:
Ms. Orli Rozencwajg
972-2-5828239 ext .109
orli@bsf.org.il
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Israel
International country outside of the USA, Israel and Canada.
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176064_BSF-NSF_Computational_Neuroscience_Program_Call_for_Proposal.pdf
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