The new grant program will be coordinated by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), as part of a joint program with the Planning and Budgeting Committee and numerous philanthropic foundations such as Yad Hanadiv, the Klarman Family Foundation, The Russell Berrie Foundation and the Wolfson Family Charitable Trust.
Up to $2 million will be allocated to a competitive grant program that will be used to finance research projects within a four week timeframe. Subjects addressed by the projects can pertain to a wide variety of fields, such as immunology, virology, pharmacology, molecular and cell biology, epidemiology, artificial intelligence, robotics, engineering and the combinations thereof.
The committee will select projects based on their degree of scientific excellence and applicability in the short to medium-term to address the ongoing pandemic. In accordance with the aims of the new research grant program, the committee noted that there is an urgent need to encourage global data sharing and collaboration.
It is estimated, according to the committee, that the grant will be able to fund approximately 30 projects, ranging from $50,000-$200,000 per project for a duration of 6-12 months.
In response to the new grant, Professor Yuval Dor,head of the Life Sciences and Medical Sciences Division at the Israel Science Foundation said that “The scientific community in Israel immediately took up the challenge of fighting the pandemic, and did so spontaneously, without waiting for additional funding or guidance."We are witnessing a surge of ground-breaking, collaborative and cross-disciplinary research that has the potential to change the course of Covid-19," Dor continued. "We are happy to be able to assist this research and we thank the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education and the philanthropic foundations for establishing this new grant making framework in record time.”