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In 65% of the proposals, both the Israeli and United States partners requested funding -- a similar percentage to the previous cycle. In 102 proposals (23.4%), more than 50% of the budget was requested for the United States investigator. Over 70% of the support was requested for Israeli investigators and about 30% for the United States collaborators. In 75% of the proposals, the application was for 4 years of support, in 16% for 3 years, and in 9% for 2 years. These numbers are generally similar to statistics for the previous two such cycles. The number of applications to the BSF Start-Up Program for young investigators continued to rise, reaching 5.7% of the submissions to both the Regular and Start-Up Programs, with applications from United States investigators for the first time (see Table 2). The review process was exceptionally smooth and successful, with a record number of reviews. Fig.ure 1 shows  the distribution of reviews per proposal. The total number of reviews per proposal, and, more importantly, the average number of  5.7 reviews per application, was significantly higher than in previous years. This was largely due to completion of the web-based submission and review system.

 

 

 

Other BSF Board Decisions

 

New Regulations

The Board made several new regulations: a PI collaborating with a start-up candidate cannot request support, except for travel expenses; and if two or more applicants in a single start-up application are eligible for support, each is regarded as a full recipient of a start-up grant.

 

Fundraising Program

Since the BSF endowment has not been replenished by the two governments since 1984, and therefore maintaining the scientific relations between Israel and the United States is becoming more and more problematic, the Board has also decided to start a fundraising program. The BSF is in the process of hiring a full-time Director of Development, who will devise a new fundraising plan that will be discussed at the next Board Meeting, as well start to establish the legal, public relations and other infrastructure required.

PROFESSOR A. PAZY MEMORIAL AWARD IN MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

Prof. Amnon Pazy, a well-known mathematician, served on the BSF Board, with two periods as elected Chairman, from 1997 until his death in August 2006. During his long and impressive career, he was President of the Hebrew University and Head of the Committee for Planning and Budgeting for the Higher Education System in Israel (VATAT). To honor his memory, the BSF established the Professor A. Pazy Memorial Award in Mathematical Sciences this year: $10,000 will be given bi-annually to the most outstanding and original new BSF-funded projects in Mathematics and Computer Science.

BSF-SUPPORTED WORKSHOPS

In 2007, the Board selected three out of 63 applications in response to the 2006 call for  BSF Workshops, allocating a total budget of $100,000:

· “Inflammation-Induced Cancer:  A United-States–Israel Binational Workshop,” moderated by Dr. Yinon Ben-Neriah, Dr. Eithan Galun and Dr. Eli Pikarsky (the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School), Dr. Michael Karin (University of California, San Diego), and Dr. Snorri S.Thorgeirsson (National Cancer Institute). This Workshop is scheduled to take place December 17-19, 2007, in Jerusalem

Table 2. Submissions to the BSF Start-Up Program

Figure 1