August 14, 2015

Dear Colleague:

To facilitate the support of collaborative work between US groups and their Israeli counterparts, NSF's Division of Materials Research (DMR) in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and the BSF have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding that outlines a review process for projects in Materials Research. Israeli researchers are invited to read the BSF solicitation: http://www.bsf.org.il/ElectronicSubmission/GatewayFormsAndGuidelines.aspx

International collaborations are invited to submit proposals in the all areas described in the following DMR Core Programs:

Biomaterials (PD 06-7623)
Ceramics (PD 14-1774)
Condensed Matter and Materials Theory (PD 09-1765)
Condensed Matter Physics (PD 03-1710)
Electronic and Photonic Materials (PD 03-1775)
Metals and Metallic Nanostructures (PD 09-1771)
Polymers (PD 03-1773)
Solid State and Materials Chemistry (PD 10-1762)

Proposals will be submitted by US Principal Investigators to the NSF and the Israeli Principal Investigators will submit a parallel proposal to the BSF immediately afterwards. The NSF proposals will be reviewed in competition with other proposals received for the same funding round by NSF using NSF's merit review process. It is important to note that there are no separate NSF funds available for these efforts; proposals must compete with all other proposals within the NSF program and must succeed on the strengths of their intellectual merit and broader impact. BSF will check the role of the Israeli scientist and his/her eligibility at the onset of the process, but will not conduct a parallel review and will not rank proposals; BSF is likely to fund any Israeli whose research partner is funded by NSF.

Proposal Preparation and Submission:

1. The NSF proposal must be submitted to a participating DMR program by a US organization. The Israeli organization submits a parallel proposal to the BSF via the BSF submission system.
2. Proposals must be submitted via FastLane in accordance with proposal preparation guidelines in the NSF Grants Proposal Guide or via Grants.gov in accordance with proposal preparation guidelines in the NSF Grants.gov Application Guide.
3. The proposal title should be prefaced with "NSF/DMR-BSF:"
4. The project description must describe the nature of the collaboration and the role of the Israeli partners.
5. Israeli investigators should not be listed as co-PIs on the NSF cover sheet. The NSF proposal should include biographical sketches of all senior personnel, including Israeli partners.
6. The budget forms submitted to NSF should only indicate the amount requested by the US institution. The NSF proposal should also include a pdf of the BSF budget form as a supplementary document. The parallel proposal submitted to BSF indicates the amount requested from BSF for the Israeli side of the collaboration.
7. The NSF budget justification must clearly differentiate between the US and Israeli project budgets; proposals that request duplicative funding may be returned without review.

Post Award Considerations: Awardees will be required to acknowledge both NSF and BSF in any reports or publications resulting from the award. Requests for changes in awards (for example, for changes in scope) will be discussed by NSF and BSF before a joint decision is made.

Sincerely,

Dr. Linda Sapochak
Acting Division Director
Division of Materials Research
National Science Foundation