The United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) is an independent, bilaterally governed foundation that funds joint research collaborations between American and Israeli scientists. It was established in 1972 pursuant to an agreement between the Governments of the United States and Israel, and it remains one of the primary funding mechanisms for formal US-Israel scientific cooperation. This guide covers what BSF is, how it is governed and funded, its core eligibility rule, its main grant programs, and how the application process works.
Not the same organization as the Israel Science Foundation (ISF). BSF and ISF are separate, independently administered foundations that are easy to confuse because of their similar names. The Israel Science Foundation (ISF) is Israel’s domestic national basic-research funder, open to Israel-based investigators applying on their own. BSF, covered on this page, funds only joint teams that include both a US-based principal investigator and an Israel-based principal investigator — it does not fund single-country research. If you are looking for ISF’s domestic Israeli grant programs, see the ISF guide instead.
What Is the BSF?
BSF was created in 1972 as a bilateral foundation dedicated specifically to supporting cooperative scientific research between the United States and Israel. Unlike a national funding agency that supports researchers from a single country, BSF’s entire mandate is binational collaboration: every grant it makes must involve substantive joint work between a US research team and an Israeli research team. BSF operates as an independent, not-for-profit foundation rather than as a government office of either country, though its funding ultimately derives from both governments.
Governance and Funding Structure
BSF is directed by a Board of Governors made up of an equal number of American and Israeli members. This binational board structure — rather than a single national agency’s leadership — reflects BSF’s founding purpose as a joint US-Israel institution rather than an extension of either country’s domestic science-funding apparatus. BSF is funded by both the US and Israeli governments, but it is administered independently of both: it is not a branch office of a US federal agency or of an Israeli ministry, and it operates under its own governance, review procedures, and grant-making decisions, separate from both governments’ regular domestic research-funding programs. This is also what separates it structurally from ISF, which is Israel’s own national foundation administered under the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and funded primarily by the Government of Israel alone for Israel-based, single-country research.
The Core Eligibility Rule: A Joint US-Israel PI Team Is Mandatory
The single most important eligibility rule to understand about BSF is that it funds joint research only. An application must be submitted jointly by a US-based principal investigator and an Israel-based principal investigator, and the proposal must demonstrate substantive collaboration between the two — not two parallel, independently run projects that happen to share a title. BSF does not have a mechanism for funding a US-only or Israel-only research project; if a proposed project does not genuinely require and involve both a US and an Israeli investigator working together, it falls outside BSF’s mandate regardless of scientific merit.
Cooperation between the US and Israeli teams is expected to be active and ongoing, and can take a range of forms, including joint planning of the research, shared data gathering and evaluation of results, provision of facilities, materials, equipment, or services to the collaborating team, and exchange of personnel between the two labs. No prior collaboration history between the two investigators is required to apply, but the scientific synergy and genuine interdependence between the US and Israeli parts of the project must be clear from the application itself.
Beyond the joint-PI requirement, BSF grants are generally restricted to not-for-profit institutions — universities, research institutes, and governmental research bodies — on both sides of the collaboration, and proposed research must be intended for peaceful, non-classified purposes. Applicants should confirm current institutional-eligibility specifics directly with BSF, since exact requirements can be refined between cycles.
BSF Grant Programs
BSF Research Grants (the core, regular program)
BSF’s standard research-grant track funds investigator-driven collaborative projects across the sciences, evaluated primarily on scientific quality and on the strength and necessity of the US-Israel collaboration itself. Publicly available program information indicates a maximum request of $300,000 total, awarded over a grant period of up to four years, though applicants should treat this as a ceiling to confirm against BSF’s current call rather than a fixed award amount — actual awards vary by proposal and available funds.
NSF-BSF Joint Research Grants Program
BSF also administers a joint program with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), operating under a Memorandum of Understanding on Research Cooperation between the two organizations. Under this arrangement, the US side of a joint proposal is funded through a regular NSF award to the US investigator, while the Israeli side of the same collaborative project is funded by BSF, using support BSF receives from the Government of Israel. In practice this lets a single collaborative research plan be reviewed and funded through both a US and an Israeli funding channel simultaneously, rather than requiring the Israeli partner to seek a separate, unrelated funding source. Because the NSF-BSF program sits on top of NSF’s own directorate structure, applicants should check current NSF program solicitations and BSF’s own NSF-BSF program pages for which disciplinary areas are open in a given cycle.
How to Apply: Process and Timeline
BSF Research Grant applications are submitted jointly by the US and Israeli co-investigators as a single, unified proposal covering the whole collaborative project, rather than as two separate national submissions. Historically, BSF has run its regular research-grant competition on a split-program basis: eligibility to submit in a given annual cycle alternates by broad disciplinary area, with health sciences, life sciences, and psychology proposals invited in one year and exact, natural, and social sciences proposals invited in the alternating year. The regular annual submission deadline has historically fallen in mid-November. Because both the disciplinary-cycle rules and the exact submission date can change between cycles, applicants and research offices should always confirm the current year’s eligible disciplines and deadline directly on BSF’s own website (bsf.org.il) before beginning an application, rather than relying on a prior year’s cycle.
After submission, proposals go through BSF’s own scientific review process before a funding decision is made by the Board of Governors. As with any peer-reviewed funder, research offices supporting a joint applicant should build in time for both institutions’ internal proposal-routing and sign-off procedures ahead of BSF’s own deadline, since a binational proposal typically has to clear each partner institution’s research office as well as BSF’s submission portal.
How BSF Differs from ISF, at a Glance
Because the two names are easy to conflate, it is worth restating the practical distinction plainly. ISF is Israel’s domestic basic-research funder: an Israel-based PI applies on their own (or with an Israel-based team) to a program administered by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, funded mainly by the Government of Israel, for research that does not need to involve a foreign co-investigator. BSF is the opposite in structure: it exists specifically to fund joint US-Israel teams, is governed by its own binational Board of Governors, is funded by both governments but administered independently of both, and has no domestic-only funding track. A research office advising an Israel-based investigator should ask a single qualifying question to route them correctly: is there a genuine US-based co-investigator and collaboration built into this project? If yes, BSF (or the NSF-BSF program) is the relevant mechanism; if no, the ISF’s domestic grant tracks are the more likely fit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the BSF the same organization as the Israel Science Foundation (ISF)?
No. They are separate, independently governed foundations. BSF funds only joint US-Israel research collaborations and is governed by a binational Board of Governors; ISF is Israel’s domestic national basic-research funder, administered by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, open to Israel-based investigators without requiring a foreign co-investigator.
Can a US researcher apply to BSF without an Israeli co-investigator, or vice versa?
No. A BSF Research Grant requires a joint application from both a US-based and an Israel-based principal investigator, with substantive collaboration built into the project. BSF does not fund single-country research.
Do the US and Israeli investigators need a prior collaboration history to apply?
No prior joint work is required, but the application must make clear that genuine scientific synergy and interdependence exists between the US and Israeli parts of the proposed project.
How much funding does a BSF Research Grant provide?
Publicly available program information indicates a maximum request of $300,000 total over a grant period of up to four years for the core BSF Research Grants track, though applicants should confirm current ceilings on BSF’s own site, since figures and terms can change between cycles.
What is the NSF-BSF Joint Research Grants Program?
It is a joint funding arrangement between BSF and the US National Science Foundation, under a Memorandum of Understanding on Research Cooperation, in which the US side of a joint proposal is funded through a regular NSF award and the Israeli side is funded by BSF using support it receives from the Government of Israel.
When are BSF grant applications due?
BSF’s regular research-grant competition has historically run on an annual cycle with a mid-November deadline, with eligible disciplines alternating year to year between a health/life-sciences/psychology group and an exact/natural/social-sciences group. Applicants should confirm the current cycle’s exact deadline and eligible disciplines directly on BSF’s website before applying.
What kinds of institutions are eligible for BSF funding?
BSF grants are generally restricted to not-for-profit institutions on both sides of the collaboration, such as universities, research institutes, and governmental research bodies, and proposed work must be for peaceful, non-classified purposes.
For research administrators supporting a joint US-Israel proposal, it can also help to review how Collaborative Research Agreements (CRAs) are structured between partner institutions, and how grants management practices generally handle multi-institution, multi-funder awards.
