Israel-Italy Joint Innovation Program

| 17 03 2009

Submission by 31/05/09

 

        

In the framework of the activities foreseen by the Agreement on industrial, scientific and technological research and development cooperation between Italy and Israel (hereinafter called “Agreement”) the Middle East Department of the “Directorate General for Mediterranean and Middle East Countries” of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Italian Party, and MATIMOP-The Israeli Industry Center for R&D for the Israeli Party on behalf of the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) of the Ministry of Industry Trade and Labor, are starting the procedures for the selection of projects eligible for financial support as in Article 4 of the Agreement.

1. Program scope

Joint Italian-Israeli R&D projects can be presented in the following areas, as listed in Article 2 of the Agreement:

Ø      medicine, public health and hospital organization;

Ø      biotechnology;

Ø      agriculture and food science

Ø      new energy sources and use of natural resource;

Ø      applications of informatics to education and scientific research;

Ø      environnent

Ø      communication

Ø      innovation production processes

Ø      space

Ø      information technologies, data communication, software ;

Ø      any other area of mutual interest;

The projects approved by the Italian and Israeli Authorities, which will be selected in the framework of the present Call, will be financed by both the contracting Parties of the Agreement. The support will be given to each partner by its own Authorities in accordance with the national and/or regional Laws, Rules, Regulations and Procedures in effect.

2. Qualifications.

    The criteria to be followed in order to apply to the present Call are:

Ø      The Israeli partner must be Industrial entity (company) which may be technologically and scientifically assisted by non industrial entity (eg: university research institute etc) as subcontractor.

The Italian partner can be an industrial entity (company) or a  non industrial entity

(eg: university, research institute etc).
In case of a non industrial entity, it has to be assisted by an industrial entity.

Ø      The Italian and Israeli partners must express the will to cooperate, on a balanced basis, towards the development of a new product, industrial process or service.

Ø      The product, process or service must be innovative and there must be a technological risk involved.

Ø      The project must be equally significant for participants from both countries.

Ø      The participants are required to have preliminarily signed a-partnership agreement on the commercialization of the product, process or service once the phase of research and development has been completed and the ownership and use of know how and IPR settlements (“Partnership Agreement”).

Any partner whose cooperative R&D project is consistent with the aforesaid criteria can apply to the present Call in accordance with the national and/or regional Laws, Rules, Regulations and Procedures in effect.

3. Submission of the project proposals

The project application must be sent, simultaneously to the competent Italian Authorities (Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Middle East Department of the “Directorate General for Mediterranean and Middle East Countries”) and Israeli Authorities (Ministry of Industry Trade and Labour - Office of the Chief Scientist – OCS, through MATIMOP, the Israeli Industry Center for R&D) by means of the attached application form in English language.  The application must be filled in all its parts and signed by the person responsible for the project.

Final Submission must be completed and forms must be received by May 31, 2009.

 4.  Evaluation and selection of the projects. 

The competent Authorities (as in Article 8 of the Agreement) will carry out an evaluation process of the received projects and will select the proper project to be financially supported in accordance with their national laws and regulations.  The Italian - Israeli Joint Commission will receive the selected projects by the two national authorities, to be endorsed as projects supported under the bi-national agreement.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will sign, with the Italian partner selected for the financial support, a contract containing the details of the conditions and the terms of the financial support that will be granted as well as the rules for eligibility of costs and procedures for technical and financial reporting.  The Israeli Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) will sign a similar document with the Israeli partner.   In addition to the above-mentioned documents a Partnership Agreement signed by the counterpart, will be added as an annex.

5. Modalities for the financial support of the projects.

Projects in the frame of this call will be financed by the respective national and/or regional authorities in Italy & Israel, in accordance with the national laws, rules, regulations & procedures in effect. Every selected project can be financed up to 50% of the documented and eligible costs of research and development. When the project is successful, repayment of royalties may apply according to applicable rules and procedures. No repayment is due when the project does not reach the stage of the commercialization. 

In Israel:

The Israeli industrial partner will have to comply with the procedures, rules and regulations of the OCS/MOITAL (the Law for the Encouragement of Industrial R&D).

Adding to the application form, the eligible Israeli Industrial partner will submit a national application for funding.

Applications submitted to the OCS will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

• Technological innovation
• Economic potential of the proposed product/service.
• The added value of the cooperation between project partners

The capability of the partners (R&D personnel, Infrastructure, Finance, Marketing.

6. Publicity of the Results.

Project partners whose projects have been selected will be informed of the result by means of letter. The list of the selected projects will be published on the Website of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In Israel, For the Israeli party, MATIMOP, on behalf of the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) will inform the Israeli companies by means of a letter and publication on the Website of the Israeli Ministry of Industry Trade and Labour.

For further information:

 

Italy	Israel
Mr Luca Querin	Ilana Gross-Project Officer
Ministry of Foreign Affairs	MATIMOP - Israeli Industry Center for R&D
P.le della Franesina, 1	29 Hamered St. (P.O.Box 50364)
00194 Rome, Italy	Tel-Aviv 61500, Israel
Tel. +39- 06.369.18901	Tel: +972-3-5118184
Fax. +39- 06.36913567	Fax: +972-3-5177655
dgmm2@esteri.it	ilana@matimop.org.il

 

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