The global pursuit of new neurological treatments has been bolstered by a €38 million boost from the European Commission.
EBRAINS is an EU co-funded collaborative project to develop a “digital ecosystem” that enables researchers and clinicians to explore the complexity of the brain at various scales.
From here they can derive new solutions for neurological medicines, interventions and technologies.
The European Commission has now accepted the “EBRAINS 2.0” proposal, granting €38m for the further development of services of the EBRAINS research infrastructure to 2026.
Over the next three years, the infrastructure will continue to develop tools and services to widely serve research communities in neurosciences, brain medicine, and brain-inspired technologies.
Part of the plans will see the establishment of a new standard for brain atlases, the gathering and “connecting” of multimodal neuroscientific and clinical data. The project will also continue to support the development of digital twin approaches.
The project involves 59 partner institutions from 16 European countries. It was selected for funding after evaluation by independent experts. It is coordinated by the EBRAINS AISBL, a non-profit organisation founded in Brussels during the Human Brain Project, and starts in January 2024.
“The grant agreement marks an important milestone for the EBRAINS research infrastructure,” says Katrin Amunts, who became Joint CEO of the EBRAINS AISBL in September 2023.
“We look forward to further developing our tools and services, to share them with our colleagues and empower the community to make progress in neuroscience.”
“We are delighted to have been awarded the SERV grant,” says joint CEO Philippe Vernier. “It is a recognition of the sustainable scientific value of the research infrastructure.”
EBRAINS was officially launched in 2019 and, in 2021, was included in the Roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI).
In this next phase, after the recent conclusion of the HBP, EBRAINS will complete the transition into a sustainable infrastructure.
