United States–Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF)

The Binational Science Foundation is a unique bilateral funding body established by the US and Israeli governments in 1972 to support joint basic research collaborations between scientists at American and Israeli institutions. Every funded project requires a principal investigator at a US institution and one at an Israeli institution, making it one of the world's most distinctive structured collaboration instruments at national scale. BSF joint programs with NSF, NIH, and DOE expand the funding envelope for projects at the intersection of physical sciences, biomedical research, and energy technology, leveraging both countries' complementary strengths. The Transformative Science Program funds higher-risk, higher-reward proposals that fall outside conventional study sections — a design that has produced several landmark results in theoretical computer science and quantum information. Since its founding BSF has funded over 4,500 research grants, generating an unusually dense transatlantic citation network between Israeli and US academic communities.