BARD US-Israel Binational Agricultural R&D

BARD US-Israel Binational Agricultural R&D

Funds United States and Israeli agricultural research partnerships through binational collaboration for applied agriculture and food-system innovation.

Eligibility · United States, Israel

The BARD Foundation — Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund — is a bilateral research funding mechanism jointly established and administered by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. BARD funds collaborative agricultural R&D projects between U.S. and Israeli researchers and companies, with the goal of advancing agricultural productivity, food security, and agribiotech innovation of mutual benefit to both nations. The programme has operated continuously since 1977, making it one of the longest-running bilateral science-and-technology funding vehicles between the two countries.

Award sizes typically range from $150,000 to $400,000 per project (with a median near $275,000), structured as royalty-backed conditional grants: funding is repayable upon commercial success, functioning as a risk-sharing instrument rather than a pure grant or a loan. Eligible applicants include both for-profit companies and universities or research organisations, requiring at least one U.S. partner and one Israeli partner per project. Technology Readiness Levels span TRL 3–6, covering applied agricultural research through early-stage commercialisation. Sector focus is agriculture and agribiotech broadly — including crop science, animal science, water-use efficiency, pest management, food technology, and related fields.

BARD issues annual calls for research proposals; the BARD board reviews and approves projects on a cycle basis. Applicants must form a binational team prior to application, with both sides contributing to project design and cost-sharing. The programme is particularly accessible to university researchers and small agritech companies with an active Israeli counterpart and research-stage innovations that do not yet have a commercial product.