New impulse for research in digital neuroscience

EBRAINS (European Brain Research Infrastructures) is a collaborative research platform co-funded by the European Union (EU) and designed to advance neuroscience and brain health. Developed as a legacy of Human Brain Project (HBP), EBRAINS is a digital ecosystem in which researchers, clinicians and experts converge to explore the complexity of the brain at various scales and deduce new solutions for brain medicine and technology.

The European Commission has signed a grant agreement to finance EBRAINS with 38 million euros until 2026 within the INFRASERV call. Over the next three years, the infrastructure will continue to develop tools and services to continue serving the research communities in neuroscience, brain medicine, and brain-inspired technologies.

The new EBRAINS 2.0 project will drive the development and provision of infrastructure research technologies to the scientific community. It aims to set a new standard for brain atlases, gather and connect multimodal neuroscience and clinical data, and drive the development of digital twin-based approaches through modeling and simulation.

59 associated institutions from 16 European countries participate in the project, including the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC). It is coordinated by EBRAINS AISBL, a non-profit organization founded in Brussels during the HBP project, and begins in January 2024. “It should be noted that the Rey Juan Carlos University, through the research group VG-Lab, was part of the HBP project from its beginning and has been involved in the EBRAINS AISBL since its foundation,” says Óscar Robles, project coordinator at the URJC.

About EBRAINS

The EBRAINS research infrastructure, a key outcome and legacy of the EU-funded HBP project, was officially launched in 2019. It was selected for funding after being evaluated by independent experts. Two years later, in 2021, EBRAINS was included in the roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI). In this next phase, following the recent conclusion of the HBP project, EBRAINS will complete the transition towards sustainable infrastructure. "We are delighted to have received the SERV funds," says Philippe Vernier, joint CEO of EBRAINS. "It is a recognition of the sustainable scientific value of research infrastructure."

Focused on creating tools, models and workflows, EBRAINS facilitates research on brain organization, disease mechanisms and biomarkers. It supports the development of computational models of diseases, fostering collaboration and promoting diversity and inclusion in neuroscience. The overall goal is to deepen our understanding of brain structure and function, leading to advances in brain medicine, technology, and computing.

For its part, EBRAINS AISBL is an international non-profit association, based in Brussels (Belgium). The research infrastructure is organized around a central core that coordinates a pan-European network of services provided through 11 national nodes: Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

“The grant agreement marks an important milestone for the EBRAINS research infrastructure,” says Katrin Amunts, joint CEO of EBRAINS AISBL since September 2023 and also leading the drafting of the successful EBRAINS 2.0 proposal. "We hope to continue developing our tools and services, to share it with our colleagues and empower the community to advance neuroscience," she adds.