This coming Thursday, there will be a ceremony at the residence of the European Union ambassador in Israel to honor Israeli researchers from industry and academia who won research grants in the European programs in the past year
Since the beginning of the Seventh Program for Research and Development of the European Union in January 2007, 1530 Israeli winners take part in projects whose total value reaches 20 billion Euros, with the amount of research grants to winners in Israel being 570 million € (Euro). This amount constitutes a 140% refund of the payment that the State of Israel has so far transferred to the European Union for its participation in the program.
At the annual event that will take place tomorrow, Thursday, October 18.10.2012, 361, under the auspices of the EU Ambassador to Israel Andrew Standley, and the CEO of ISERD Marcel Staun, tokens of appreciation will be awarded to XNUMX Israeli entities that won research grants in the past year. The winning Israeli bodies take part in European projects worth millions of Euros per project. Some of the projects are an Israeli initiative and are led by industrial and academic bodies from Israel.
The 361 Israeli winners of the past year are taking part in projects whose total value is higher than one billion euros, when the amount of the research grants to the Israeli winners is €122 million (euro).
2013 is the last year in the seventh framework program. This year will examine the question of Israel's continued participation in the next framework program - the eighth - known as "Horizon 2020", which requires special budgetary and organizational preparation.
Ambassador Standley expresses his satisfaction with the cooperation between Israel and the seventh framework program and says: "We welcome Israel's interest in the next framework program "Horizon 2020" (2014-2020) and hope that our fruitful and successful cooperation will increase and tighten even more with the new challenges and opportunities it will pose before the research and development communities of Europe and Israel".
Below are examples of projects in which parties from Israel participate, according to fields:
ICT:
- Finisar Israel and ECI are partners in a project dealing with the development of a terabyte transmitter for optical networks.
- The Shagib Tech company is leading a project in building a video documentation of an event with the help of multiple photographic sources.
- IBM Haifa is leading a project to develop a platform for creating online services based on information from the virtual world and information collected from physical devices in the organization
energy:
- The Environmental & Water Resources Engineering company is leading a project in which the Technion, the Electric Company, and the company Lapidot Seekers of Oil for Israel Ltd. are also partners, which deals with underground CO2 reservoirs for industrial use.
around the:
- The Xjet company is a partner in a project dealing with the sustainable development of solar panels.
Support in peripheral areas:
- The Migl Mekrit Shmona Research Institute received a grant of 4.4 million euros (the highest grant ever awarded in Israel to a single entity) for the establishment of a CEREHA Center of Excellence. The aim of the center is to promote research on old age from biological, medical, environmental, social and epidemiological perspectives. As part of the project, Migel will take in a significant number of young researchers.
health:
- NanoPass technologies is a partner in a project in the field of type 1 diabetes.
Agriculture and biotechnology:
- The Netafim company is leading a project in which the Technion and the Agora company are also partners, which deals with the development of a system to manage economical irrigation to reduce the use of water for agriculture.
space:
- The Elbit-Alop company leads the QI2S project (the first project in this field led by an Israeli company) in which the Ramon Chips company also participates. The project develops technology that will significantly shorten (from days or weeks to real time or near real time) the transfer time to the ground of data from hyperspectral observations of the Earth.
transportation:
- The Technion and the municipality of Tel Aviv together with the municipalities of Stuttgart, Braun and Malaga, will participate in the 2MOVE2 project which aims to create sustainable, environmentally friendly, and energy efficient alternative means of urban transportation.
Security:
- The Hebrew University leads the MiSafe project in which the Ministry of Internal Security (Israel Police) also participates. The project develops a tool for criminal identification through the construction of a genetic profile of bacteria from soil samples at the crime scene.
researcher mobility
- The Sourasky Medical Center accepted an Israeli researcher who returned to Israel from the USA for research dealing with temporal dimensions of information processing as markers of a mental state - evidence from schizophrenia.
- Israel Energy Initiative and the Hebrew University are partners in a project in a new supra-disciplinary research field, derived from physics and earth sciences.
- The Selyno Biomedical company is a partner in the project that develops transport systems based on biological material, for situations of ischemia.
Humanities and Social Sciences:
- The Hebrew University is a partner in the project investigating constraints and contradictions in granting naturalization rights in Europe.
EUREKA:
- The V-GEN company together with a company from Finland are partners in the key fiber laser project
- FST21 is a project partner with companies from Turkey, Great Britain and South Korea to develop a smart access control system for office buildings in a manned environment.
Avi Hasson, chairman of the Gentile Committee of ISERD, the Israeli administration for European R&D and the chief scientist at the Ministry of Research and Development: "At this time, when the world is facing an economic crisis, international cooperation is a central way of creating competitive advantages and penetrating relevant markets. The framework program is one of the ways open to Israeli companies to create such collaborations and to build the synergies required to deal with the economic upheavals. The 361 winners of the past year can be an example to other companies of the benefits inherent in creating international collaborations"
Marcel Staun CEO of ISERD: "The European framework program allows industry and academia in Israel to cooperate and integrate into the European research space. The European space is a fertile ground for consolidating Israel's scientific-technological excellence."
