From medicine to space, applied technologies to cultural change and demographics, the Israel-Italy Joint Innovation Program for Industrial, Scientific and Technological Cooperation in R&D announced a call for proposals for projects to be co-funded over the coming two-year period. Applications, which can be submitted by Italian firms, universities and research centres jointly with Israeli partners, are subject to 7 March 2016 deadline. Projects can concern priority sectors such as medicine, agriculture, environment, new energy sources, manufacturing innovation, IT and space technologies in industry, neuro-degenerative motor system diseases and new technologies to be applied to the scientific component of the migration phenomenon (details here). Heading up the initiative is the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MFAIC) and Israeli Ministry of Science, Technology and Space (Most) and Ministry of the Economy (Iserd), coordinators for the implementation of the intergovernmental accord on industrial, science and technology signed in Bologna in 2000 and enacted in 2002. “To date, thanks to the instruments provided by this accord, 127 industrial development and 50 basic research projects have been completed, with the involvement of the best scientific and production facilities in Italy and Israel. In light of our goal of further tapping the accord’s potential, beginning in 2016 the teams that submit industrial development projects will also have access to an advance on the funding agreed on during the assessment process”, explained head of the MFAIC’s science and technology cooperation unit Roberto Cantone, during the presentation of the call for proposals held at the Farnesina before an audience of more than 70 sector representatives. “Israel ranks third in the world for innovative capacity and Italy is seen there as a valid partner in the industrialisation of products and technologies, thanks to the diversification, flexibility and expansion of its industrial system. These synergies have found direct application in the seven joint Italo-Israeli laboratories that, thanks to this accord, it has been possible to create in less than 15 years”, added Stefano Boccaletti, science attaché at the Embassy of Italy in Tel Aviv. New additions for 2016 include the Rita Levi Montalcini Prize currently being instituted with a view to encouraging the mobility of scholars of international renown.