BIRD Homeland Security

BIRD Homeland Security is the BIRD Foundation’s bilateral track for advanced homeland-security technologies, managed under the foundation’s joint U.S.-Israel framework. The raw program note ties it to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Israel’s Ministry of National Security, and the structured record places it in Israel with an annual cadence. The award band runs from USD 500,000 to USD 1.5 million, with support capped at 50 percent of the joint R&D budget. The instrument is a conditional grant, and the eligible structure is a joint proposal between two companies or between a company and a university or research institution, with one partner from each country. The program is built around commercialization, so the project outcome should lead toward a deployable product rather than only a research result. The public record also shows that the current cycle was between rounds at the time of the latest fetch, which underscores that this is a call-based program rather than open intake. The substantive fit is technology for first responders, border protection, critical infrastructure, secure cities, command and control, video analytics, wearable sensors, and detection or identification of hazards. Applicants do best when the use case is concrete, the cross-border partnership is balanced, and the technical plan can plausibly move into field use. In practice, the track rewards teams that can pair engineering depth with a clear security mission and a commercial path after the grant ends.

No upcoming rounds verified. Cadence: Annual.