Israeli-French Research in Renewable Energy: Storage, Solar

The program is to support the development of scientific and technological cooperation between French and Israeli researchers. French and Israeli research teams are hereby invited to submit proposals for research projects in the field of “Renewable Energy: Storage, Solar".
Generally, funding may be devoted to the costs related to the bilateral nature of the project (traveling expense of the researchers, scientific meetings, etc.) as well as to defray costs incurred by the approved research projects (disposables, publication costs, etc.). For the Israeli side only, project funds may be used to finance monthly salaries of research staff members retained specifically for the project. Specific provisions regarding permissible use of project funds are set out in the research contract.

It is planned that the projects that have been awarded will begin in September 2011.

Evaluation will be based on:
1. Conformity with the definition of program research topics presented above;
2. Significance (quantitative whenever relevant) of the problem being addressed, and the potential impact of the proposed approach on solving it. Proposals should address these issues explicitly and provide as much evidence as possible;
3. Scientific merit, with emphasis upon the originality and novelty of the proposed research;
4. Clarity and quality of the research proposal itself – presentation of the topic, definition of research objectives, presentation of research methodology and detailed program of work;
5. Feasibility of the research program;
6. Practical applicability of expected research findings;
7. Extent of genuine collaboration between the French and Israeli research teams;
8.The level of involvement of young researchers.

Important: Post-doctoral grants are not available in this program. However, on the French side, such grants may be supplied through the Chateaubriant program (Israeli fellow to a French lab), or through the fellowships provided by the French Ministry of Higher Education & Research to the French Research institute  (CNRS, etc.)

Important: both the French and Israeli sides must fill out their applications identically, including a full, identical description of the project (appended separately to the application). However, each side's principal investigator (PI) is to sign only his own application together with the members of his own country's research team and official authorities and is to append the detailed budget of his research team only.