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Greetings,

 

We are excited to share this new internal funding opportunity from the Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University. The Moise Y. Safra Collaborative Research Award will support collaborative research and scholarly exchange between the Kempner Institute and academic research institutions in Israel. More information about the award can be found in the synopsis and links below. For a full list of currently open opportunities that have been announced through our office, please visit our Current Opportunities web page. As a reminder, our Research Development team is available to provide proposal development support to FAS ladder faculty.

 

Moise Y. Safra Collaborative Research Award at the Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University

  • Deadline: November 20, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET
  • Award Amount: Up to $50,000 in direct costs for projects lasting three to 12 months 
    Assessment on allowable expenses will be covered in addition to direct costs.
 

Program Overview

 

The Kempner Institute brings together students, scientists, and engineers to study intelligence from biological, cognitive, engineering, and computational perspectives and leverage those findings to develop groundbreaking technologies. The new Moise Y. Safra Collaborative Research program is intended to advance compelling research that aligns with the Kempner Institute’s mission to understand intelligence in natural and artificial systems, while advancing the goals of the Kempner Safra Collaborative gift to strengthen intellectual exchange between researchers in the United States and Israel. The program will offer one application cycle each year in the fall with funding to start in January.

 

Budgets must be reasonable and directly support collaborative, mission-aligned research with an Israeli academic institution. Preference will be given to projects that support substantive in-person research exchanges. Allowable expenses include:

  • Travel, lodging, and related costs for research exchanges.
  • Salary or stipend support for visiting researchers at Harvard, Harvard researchers visiting in an Israeli laboratory. or other individuals working on the project.
    • Please note, faculty salary including supplemental (summer) salary, and salary for a Kempner Research Fellow applying for the award, are not allowable. 
  • Salary or stipend support for individuals working on the project.
  • Meetings, workshops, events, and other scholarly activities.
  • Direct research expenses, including Application Programming Interface (API) charges, software, and research materials.
 

Priority Areas

  • Foundations of intelligence: Mathematical and computational models of intelligence, cognitive theories of intelligence, and the neurobiological basis of intelligence.
  • New AI/ML methods or applications: Projects with clearly defined methodological, analytical, or performance advances. This may include new methods with explicit evaluation benchmarks, scalable applications that demonstrate methodological novelty, or rigorous studies that generate insight into how AI/ML systems function.

Eligibility Criteria

  • Kempner Institute Investigators, Associate, or Affiliate faculty who:
    • Hold a primary, full-time ladder faculty appointment at Harvard,
    • Have PI rights at a Harvard school, and
    • Are paid by and operate their laboratory through Harvard. Faculty paid directly by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) may apply if they otherwise meet these requirements.
  • Kempner Institute Research Fellows, who may not use the award to support their own salary, are also eligible.
  • Faculty based primarily at a Harvard-affiliated hospital, independent nonprofit, or other non-Harvard institution are not eligible.
  • Each application must include at least one collaborator at an Israeli academic institution and a letter confirming their participation and role in the proposed project.
 

Selection Criteria

  • Applications will be reviewed first for:
    • Scientific merit and feasibility.
    • Alignment with the Kempner Institute’s research mission.
  • Applications meeting this threshold will then be evaluated on the strength of the collaboration and the extent to which the project supports substantive scholarly exchange. Additional consideration will be given to proposals that: 
    • Establish or significantly deepen a collaboration.
    • Create opportunities for intellectual exchange for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, or other early-career researchers.
    • Are coordinated with Israeli collaborators seeking complementary funding.
 

Additional Information and Resources

 
For more information, please refer to the program website and the program announcement. 
 
All applications must be completed and submitted through the Kempner Grants Portal. Proposals must comply with the Kempner Institute’s current Open Science Policy: all code, data, model weights, and other project outputs must be made freely and publicly available through an open-source platform on or before publication. 
 
Awards will be announced December 14, 2026; funding will begin January 11, 2027.
 

Questions from FAS or SEAS faculty about this opportunity may be directed to Janet Wallace, Research Projects Manager at the Kempner Institute.

RESOURCES

Research Development maintains a Sample Proposal Library of successful proposals from recent award recipients that are available to FAS and SEAS faculty by request; please email Research Development to request to view a proposal. For more information on Research Development's resources—including lists of internal funding programs, early career funding programs, and sabbatical fellowships—please visit the Funding Opportunities web page. Previous editions of FAS Funding Focus (FFF), a resource series tailored to help FAS faculty and staff navigate the ever-evolving landscape of grants and funding, are accessible in the FFF archive. 
 

SEARCH FOR OPPORTUNITIES WITH PIVOT

All Harvard affiliates can search for opportunities and set up alerts using Pivot, a searchable database of federal and private funding opportunities. Information on Pivot, including a one-page user guide, and other funding opportunity databases available to the Harvard community can be found on the Funding Databases web page.
 

PIVOT CURATED SEARCHES

Curated funding opportunity lists are funding search topics of broad interest. The following curated lists can be further refined in Pivot based on your funding needs. To view the results you must be on a Harvard network or logged in to your Pivot account. Information on setting up a Pivot account can be found in our one-page Pivot user guide. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Additional curated lists are available on the Funding Databases web page. We continue to add to and refine these lists based on feedback. Please feel free to reach out to us at research_development@fas.harvard.edu with any suggestions you may have.
 Research Development | FAS Office of Research Administration | research.fas.harvard.edu
Your Research, Our Mission

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