James Gertler, trustee of The Zuckerman Institute, and Richard Lester, associate provost for International Activities at MIT, launch the the MIT-Israel Zuckerman STEM Fund, May 2019 (The Zukerman Institute)
A fund launched by the Mortimer Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program seeks to match faculty members from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US and seven Israeli academic institutions in an effort to promote the “next generation of groundbreaking research” in sciences and technology.
The new MIT-Israel Zuckerman STEM Fund is now calling for proposals from faculty members and research scientists for its inaugural round of seed funding to support collaborations between teams at MIT and their counterparts in Israel for research in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.
The fund is giving out awards of up to $30,000 for collaborations, and is supporting travel costs for exchanges between colleagues in the US and Israel, a statement release by the fund said.
MIT faculty from all disciplines are eligible to submit proposals for partnerships with Israeli faculty from Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, University of Haifa, and the Weizmann Institute of Science, the statement said.
“It is an honor for our program to partner with MIT, an institution with a great historic and contemporary reputation,” said James Gertler, trustee of the Zuckerman Institute. “The Israeli universities we work with have a shorter history, but they are building on a centuries-old Jewish intellectual heritage. Mort Zuckerman, my uncle and the founder of the Institute, has always been committed to fostering better understanding between Israel and America, as a part of his commitment to philanthropy that betters society.”
The fund is accepting proposals until September 16. Each proposal must include the participation of at least one PhD student from MIT.
“Israel and its academic institutions are key partners for us in solving some of today’s biggest global challenges,” said Prof. Richard Lester, associate provost for International Activities and professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT. “The launch of the MIT-Israel Zuckerman STEM Fund will help us strengthen our collaborations with Israel; enable our faculty to work with Israeli faculty; and offer our students, especially graduate students, the opportunity to learn firsthand about Israel’s ‘start-up nation’ landscape and its academic institutions and research.”
The launch of the MIT-Israel Zuckerman STEM Fund is an expansion to the program of STEM-focused scholarships provided by the Zuckerman Institute to exchange research between Israel and the US. The Zuckerman STEM Leadership program aims to support future generations of leaders in STEM studies in the US and Israel and foster greater collaborations between the scientific research centers.
