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British Council announce results of Israel-UK scientific collaboration
The British Council and British Embassy in Israel released the results of the multi-million-pound innovative program called BIRAX (Britain Israel Research Academic Exchange).
The joint British-Israeli scientific collaboration has funded over £7 million in 15 bilateral research programs. It has brought together more than 1,000 scientists from 120 institutions in a variety of projects, including stem cell treatments for multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease and therapies for Type 1 diabetes.
The programs have resulted in breakthrough research published in 30 leading scientific publications.
BIRAX was launched in 2008 by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and British PM Gordon Brown. It was developed by the British Council in collaboration with The Pears Foundation following a statement of intent from British Minister for Higher Education Bill Rammell to strengthen academic collaboration between the two countries.
In 2011, BIRAX was scaled and began focusing on regenerative medicine, a discipline in both Israel and the UK are leading players, with the goal of bringing together world-leading scientists to advance breakthroughs in the field.
The ongoing program has been endorsed and directed by the UK-Israel Science Council, a group of 26 leading scientists from both countries.
British Ambassador to Israel David Quarrey said that “BIRAX is the cornerstone of UK/Israel science cooperation. Both countries are science superpowers, but we can achieve more by working together. BIRAX works because it tackles some of the biggest challenges in world medicine – such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and heart disease – through genuine collaborative partnerships between world-class scientists in the UK and Israel. We are now looking at an ambitious new program for the next five years, through which we want to deepen even further the outstanding cooperation between scientists in both countries.”
Israel and the UK also collaborate in the form of a multi-year agreement signed in 2015 intended to fund research in a number of scientific areas and provide funding for 12-15 post-doctorate exchange fellows to advance their research.