ISF – IsraLab Grants Program

https://isf.org.il/Files/Announcement/Main%20Guideline%20IsraLab%20HEB.pdf

The program is designed to support outstanding basic research in strategic fields (Technology Readiness Levels 1–3), with the aim of enabling studies that require extensive and complex infrastructure and that may translate into contributions to the Israeli economy in the medium and long term.
Budget: Up to NIS 40 million over a period of 8 years. Up to 40% of the total budget may be allocated to the purchase of essential research equipment.

Research areas: In this call, proposals will be accepted in the natural sciences (STEM), focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for scientific breakthroughs. Proposals may address (but are not limited to) challenges such as:

• Discovery of fundamental principles in cellular organization, gene regulation, or protein dynamics using AI;  AI-based integration of multidimensional biological data (from the molecular to the organismal level) to uncover disease mechanisms;  Development of AI systems capable of generating and testing biological hypotheses at scale.
• Use or development with AI to discover new physical laws or to formulate theories from experimental data or simulations;  Development of alternative learning-based models for simulating extreme events in climate science, astrophysics, or materials science.
• Use or development of innovative computational models enabling the discovery of entirely new classes of materials, as well as AI-driven exploration of chemical space beyond current combinatorial limitations.

(See details on Section 2 of the Guidelines Overview)

Special eligibility conditions:

• Eligible applicants are senior academic faculty members on the regular track only, who will hold such an appointment throughout the grant period and have at least 10 years remaining in their employment as full faculty members.
• A researcher may participate in only one proposal as a Principal Investigator.
• Applications to this program may be submitted in parallel with submissions to, or active grants in, other ISF funding tracks.
• A proposal may include up to four Principal Investigators.
• Researchers from a research university who are not participating in a proposal submitted by their home institution may join a proposal submitted by another university.
• Only one proposal may be submitted by each university.

Internal pre-selection process: The office of the Executive Vice President for Research will conduct an internal selection process to determine the proposal to be submitted on behalf of the Technion.

Researchers interested in applying must submit a preliminary proposal in the following format:

• Details: Title, PI names and affiliations, contact information (one page).
• Proposal body: Up to 4 pages, including bibliography.
• Equipment request: Description of the requested equipment, its importance, and potential users (one page).
• Alignment with program criteria as specified in Section 6.1 of the guidelines (one page).
• CVs: One page per Principal Investigator.

The preliminary proposal should be submitted in a single PDF file to: ra-tec@trdf.technion.ac.il, by July 15.

Guidelines overview: https://isf.org.il/Files/Announcement/Main%20Guideline%20IsraLab%20HEB.pdf

ISF submission deadline: December 15 (registration deadline: October 20). The ISF submission system will open for registration and submission in September 2026.

Technology Readiness Level: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level