Zimin Institutes

Zimin Institutes is a Zimin Foundation initiative, in partnership with distinguished universities worldwide, that was designed to identify and support applied research projects that are likely to translate into real-world technologies that improve lives.

Every year each Zimin Institute supports several research projects that combine academic excellence with high potential for positive, real-world impact. Following a call for proposals, winners are selected on a competitive basis. Each institute specializes in a different area while collaborating on research to develop applied technological projects with real-world implications.

The Zimin Institutes programme started in 2017 when the Zimin Institute for Engineering Solutions Advancing Better Lives was launched at Tel Aviv University (TAU). In 2018 TAU awarded Dr Zimin an honorary doctorate. The second institute, the Zimin Institute for Smart and Sustainable Cities, opened at Arizona State University (ASU), in the United States, in 2020.

In June 2022, Technion and the Zimin Foundation signed an agreement to support the establishment and operation of the Zimin Institute for AI Solutions in Healthcare. The institute became the third in the network. Boris Zimin was also named a Technion Guardian, an honor reserved for those who have contributed the most to the institution.

The Zimin Institute for Engineering Solutions Advancing Better Lives is interested in harnessing the research carried out by TAU researchers to generate solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges in such areas as healthcare, brain studies and medicine.

The Zimin Institute supports research projects within its yearly scope of research. Its vision is to provide a bridge between the most impressive research activities at TAU and the practical domain and to ensure that the best scientific projects play a role in improving our world.

A dedicated Scientific Board and International Advisory Board select projects to support from the applicant pool every year. Criteria for funding include the applicability of the proposed research and the extent of multidisciplinary collaboration among group members.

The Zimin Institute holds a biannual international conference that brings together academics, professionals, and government and industry representatives from Israel and all over the world to share insights. The first conference took place in 2019.

The Zimin Institute for Smart and Sustainable Cities is driving a people-centric vision of future cities. We are creating a world where the rich functionality and power of advanced technologies are seamlessly integrated into the physical spaces where people live, work, learn and play to make them safer and more secure, healthier, more sustainable and resilient, and more personally enriching.

The Institute will realize this vision by initiating, catalysing, connecting, supporting, leveraging, and growing the regional smart cities ecosystem. Specifically, we will:

Identify and target promising transformative technological solutions in the people-centric Smart Cities application space

Connect researchers across disparate disciplines and application spaces to catalyse new synergistic collaborations

Fund critical-stage, cutting-edge research to break barriers and advance nascent technology solutions

Leverage ASU and local testbeds and innovative regional smart city initiatives, collaboratives and funding streams

Grow the smart city entrepreneurial ecosystem: venture funding, start-ups and revolutionary new products

The Zimin Institute for AI Solutions in Healthcare was launched in June 2022 as a joint initiative between the Zimin Foundation and Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) through its Tech.AI.BioMed arm.

The Institute’s mission is to better healthcare through the development and application of machine-learning and artificial-intelligence technologies. There is a room for such solutions at all levels of the healthcare and life sciences sectors, from the development of precision diagnostics and AI-based technologies that enhance therapeutic discovery, to altering clinical routines and patient management in hospitals, HMOs and at-home treatment.

A transformative impact occurs when innovation comes into contact with the world. This contact ensures that the innovative solution is fine-tuned by real-world problems, and is developed with foresight as to how the innovation can best make an impact that will truly transform the real world. As such, the Zimin Institute supports needs-based innovative development in academia and guides it towards commercialization.