Israeli Minister of Finance takes first step to increase the BARD endowment fund

The Minister of Finance has allocated an additional $10 million to increase the endowment fund of BARD.

A similar decision was taken in respect to the other two R&D Foundations involved in funding Israeli-U.S. collaboration: the BIRD Foundation and the BSF Foundation operating in the fields of industry and science, respectively. These allocations are conditional upon matching allocation by the United States government. Interest earned on the endowments constitute the major part of the Foundation's annual budget.

A January 4, 2010 joint press release by the Ministries of Finance and Industry explains: "This action was taken in recognition of the importance of research and development and scientific innovation as central growth engines of developed nations, and based on the desire to continue the encouragement of scientific, industrial and technological collaborations between first-rate researches and industrial companies in both countries.

Moreover, this decision was concurrent with the meeting of the JEDG Forum, the recently-convened yearly forum, in which Israel and the U.S. hold professional discussions on economic matters. In light of the initiative taken by the Ministers of Finance and Industry, this year the Forum dealt with the expansion of bilateral collaboration between the countries in various high-tech fields. The Forum decided that the possibility of expanding the use of existing tools, such as the BIRD, BSF and BARD Foundations, must be considered, including the possibility of added budgets from the American end - a condition that will enable the Foundations benefit from this increase in their endowments.

Minister of Finance Dr. Yuval Steinitz noted that "this is a significant and important step, both in terms of strengthening economic and technological ties with the U.S. and in terms of providing resources for Israeli innovation. We hope that following this action we will succeed in locating additional opportunities to achieve these goals."

Minister of Industry Benjamin (Fuad) Ben-Eliezer noted that "since their establishment, these foundations have supported hundreds of joint projects in the fields of science, industry and agriculture, many of which have become success stories. As such, they constitute a key element of the economic and industrial relationship between the two countries, which must be preserved and reinforced at all costs."