Neuron Foundation foreign internships

Kick-start your scientific career at world level

These are not ordinary work placements but carefully designed scholarship programmes that let you work alongside international authorities, take part in real research and learn how to turn scientific discoveries into practice.

Neuron & IOCB Tech Internships in Israel

Israel is a world power in innovation and technology transfer. Our unique scholarship programme sends you to the best research institutions for several months, so that you gain the most valuable thing of all — the know-how for commercialising science.

What do you get?

• Experience at top institutes: You will work on your own research at, for example, the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Technion or the Hebrew University.
• Insight into innovation: You will learn how a scientific discovery is turned into practical use, a startup or a commercial product.
• Full support: The grant covers travel costs, accommodation, per diems and visa fees.
• Experiences and contacts: You will make contacts that matter for your future career and live through an unforgettable scientific adventure, whether in a laboratory or at an archaeological dig.

Other internship options

Besides the main programme in Israel, we also support students' individual needs:

• Are you about to study at a university abroad?
• Have you already arranged a research placement abroad or in Czechia and are short of funding?
• Are you looking for mentoring for a scientific project already under way?

Every year we send dozens of gifted students on research placements abroad and at home.

Stories from the field

Judges' thinking under the microscope

In Jerusalem, the Czech lawyer Tomáš Knap took a seat in the lecture hall. This time not as a defence counsel or a judge, but as a researcher. His task sounded almost like science fiction: to teach artificial intelligence to read between the lines of judgments and uncover the collective unconscious of judges.

Tomáš believes that even independent decision-making has invisible rules. They may be influenced by the offender's age or gender, or by a few “alpha judgments” the courts cannot do without. “Czech judges decide as they see fit. The Israelis have guidelines, which are structured rules for decision-making. We have nothing of the kind,” he explains.

Under the supervision of Professor Weinshall, a world authority on the empirical analysis of the judiciary, he is examining whether the Israeli system could be an inspiration here as well.

Night vision against cataracts

While Tomáš was analysing court judgments, a different kind of vision was being studied in Olomouc — the kind that decides road safety after dark. The Israeli optometry students Deborah Kassabi and Rivka Bloom spent a month in the laboratories of Palacký University measuring how cataracts affect vision in low light.

Thanks to their commitment, the 25 planned measurements turned into 38 volunteers, and the results may have a direct impact on how to help people drive safely even with impaired sight. “The laboratories were excellent and communication with our Czech colleagues worked splendidly,” Deborah says.

The heart of innovation

At the Czech Technical University in Prague, Nowar Nureldin and Yumna Jbr studied the Czech startup ecosystem. They helped develop the EduMatch platform — an artificial intelligence that connects students with companies.

“Prague enchanted me! The ecosystem is dynamic, open, and it connects universities with business,” says Nowar. Their recommendations showed where the Czech and Israeli approaches to innovation differ, and where they can inspire each other.

2,500 years back in time

The Czech archaeologist Tereza Holasová went the other way. At the excavations in Tel Azekah and Tel Gezer her day began at 4:30, because digging started at five in the morning and went on until the heat of the sun made work impossible.

In trench T5 she discovered Iron Age agricultural features, probably connected with the production of wine or olive oil. Work was followed by washing hundreds of pottery sherds and by specialist lectures in the evening. “Sunrise over Tel Azekah was magical. And then you hold in your hand something last seen by a human being two and a half thousand years ago,” Tereza says.

“It was a unique programme that opened up new possibilities for cooperation,” one of the mentors sums up. These four stories have more in common than meets the eye. They are proof that international scientific cooperation brings concrete results, innovation and inspiration.