Since its founding in 2016, the California-Israel Collaborations in Research program has become a fast-growing bridge between California and Israeli scientists, and its success is especially striking as the BDS movement tries to isolate Israeli academics. The program lets researchers work side by side: Israeli scientists travel to California, and Californians travel to Israel. Together, they develop broader plans for joint research and gather the pilot data new lines of inquiry need. Seed grants, usually $20,000, support projects in the mathematical and physical sciences, biological sciences, engineering, agriculture and medicine.
Demand has grown dramatically. When the program launched at UC Davis in 2017, it drew 11 proposals; by 2026 that number had jumped to 55. “It was staggering to me,” said Jay Rosenheim, a retired UC Davis entomology professor and the program’s co-director. “That means there were 55 Israelis and 55 UC Davis faculty who found each other, forged a collaboration, figured out a new research direction, wrote a proposal.” The program has proven just as popular at UC Berkeley, where Wayne Getz, a retired disease ecology professor, helped launch it. There, 39 proposals competed for an expected five grants.
The program also pays off well beyond the seed money. Early results give researchers the proof of concept they need to win much larger grants from major funders such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture. On each campus, the Office of Research administers the program and selects winners based on scientific merit, prioritizing new partnerships, so each grant tends to create a new link between the two countries’ scientific communities.
Between 2017 and 2019, Calisrael awarded 16 seed grants totaling $250,000, and that modest investment has paid off many times over. The projects it launched have since attracted nearly $5 million in follow-on funding, returning $19.40 for every dollar invested. They have also produced 58 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and helped train 18 early-career scientists, including master’s students, doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers.
The program began with professors’ own contributions. It now has major philanthropic backing from the Koret Foundation and the Koum Family Foundation, established by Jan Koum, the Ukraine-born Jewish billionaire who co-founded WhatsApp. So far, it has awarded 28 grants. Building on that momentum, its leaders aim to expand to more UC campuses and to leading private research universities such as Stanford and the California Institute of Technology.
Sources: California-Israel Collaborations in Research.
Natanya Friedheim, “California-Israel science grants expand to UC Berkeley,” J. The Jewish News of Northern California, (October 19, 2026).