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[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 15 January 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.14
News
Israel hails first steps towards funding agency
Weightier grants will provide security for biomedical researchers.
Haim Watzman

Israeli researchers hope the new grants is the start of a windfall for biomedical research.zverushko/iStockphoto.comA doubling in the size of grants to 39 research groups could be the first fruits of a major push to boost biomedical funding in Israel. The move by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) follows efforts by ministers and researchers to establish an Israeli funding agency that would boost state-sponsored funding of biomedical research as much as tenfold (see 'Israel weighs up new funding agency').

The bulk of the money for the current programme, which will award US$40 million over seven years in the form of three-year grants worth around $100,000 a year, comes from the Legacy Heritage Fund, a New York City-based charity, with further funds coming from the ISF and private Israeli donors. Two rounds of grants have been awarded and the ISF is currently reviewing applications for a third, with a fourth round expected later this year. The grants are being given for research into neurodegenerative diseases, and current grantees will report how their work is progressing at a conference on 17–20 January to be held in Ein Boqeq on the shores of the Dead Sea.

"We have been working intensively to obtain the resources to offer larger grants," says Benny Geiger, a molecular-cell biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot and the newly appointed chair of the ISF's Academic Board. "Although the ISF funds a large number of biomedical projects, our average grant, $50,000 a year for three years, is very small. This is a first step in the right direction."

Solid foundations

At a conference on the proposed new funding agency held in Jerusalem last month, Ruth Arnon, an immunologist at the Weizmann Institute and vice-president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, said that the small size of the grants from the ISF and other funding agencies in Israel means that local scientists spend an average of a third of their time preparing and submitting grant applications. Larger grants are vital, she said, so that Israel's biomedical researchers can spend more time on their scientific work.

One of the grant winners under the new programme, molecular neurobiologist Michael Fainzilber, also at the Weizmann Institute, estimates that he needs about $250,000 a year to run his lab.

"So the grant is not enough to cover the entire cost, but it's a decent sum of money," Fainzilber says. The rest of his funding comes from two German-Israeli grants, and from European funding agencies. "And I've got a long list of applications currently pending," he adds.

International collaborations sponsored by European and American funding agencies will always be important sources of funding for Israeli scientists, Geiger says. "But to obtain these," he says, "Israeli scientists need a solid foundation of grants that are not dependent on collaborators", which the new programme provides.