Inventory of Brain Projects Working Group
The Inventory of Brain Projects Working Group seeks to release a resource that will aggregate data for the funded projects, funding opportunities, and resources created by the various nationally-sponsored brain projects that comprise the International Brain Initiative. Scientists and funding bodies from around the globe will use the Inventory to discover and record research projects, tools, and collaborators. In order to continue to develop and define a resource that provides the most utility to our community, the Inventory Working Group is conducting a "soft launch" for the platform.
This soft launch phase will allow the Working Group and other IBI participants to review the originally stated use cases and scope of the project. Currently, the IBI Inventory contains data from the EU Human Brain Project, the US BRAIN Initiative, and the Japan Brain/MINDS project.
Inventory of Brain Projects: Soft Launch Version
Working Group Membership:
- Amy Bernard, Allen Institute for Brain Science (co-chair)
- Stephanie Albin, The Kavli Foundation (co-chair)
- Mathew Abrams, International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF)
- Guo-Qiang Bi, University of Science and Technology of China
- Maria Luisa Bringas-Vega, Cuban Neuroscience Center and Joint China-Cuba Laboratory for Translational Neurotechnology, Cuba
- Satrajit Ghosh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School, USA
- Jeffrey Grethe, University of California at San Diego, USA
- Melina Hale, The University of Chicago, USA
- Sean Hill, Krembil Center for Neuroinformatics at CAMH, Toronto, Canada
- Patrick Hof, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, USA
- David Keator, University of California at Irvine, USA
- David Kennedy, University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA
- Sandhya Koushika, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India
- Agnes McMahon, The Kavli Foundation
- Toshihisa Ohtsuka, University of Yamanashi, Japan
- Samantha White, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, USA
- Michael Yassa, University of California at Irvine, USA
- Ping Zheng, Fudun University, Shanghai, China
Working Group Activities:
The National Science Foundation, a participant in the US BRAIN Initiative, funded the workshop Developing a Global Inventory of Brain Initiatives with grant DBI-1822398. Melina Hale and Patrick Hof, Inventory Working Group members and Principal Investigators on the grant, organized a workshop of neuroscientists from 13 different countries with a broad but deep range of interests and experience in neuroscience. The workshop, with additional support from The Kavli Foundation, took place July 23rd and 24th, 2018 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. This workshop served to provide input to the International Brain Initiative on the content and structure of the Inventory, with a focus on what types of information about global neuroscience efforts would be most useful for the scientific community to know. Workshop participants contributed their ‘blue-sky’ ideas for Inventory features and use-cases, as well as advised on potential risks associated with inventory development and how to mitigate them. A detailed meeting summary is available here.
A follow-up meeting, the International Brain Initiative Inventory: Best Practices in Systems Implementation Workshop, took place on October 22nd and 23rd, 2018 at the University of California at Irvine. This meeting was co-organized by Working Group members Mike Yassa, Satra Ghosh, and Stephanie Albin and co-funded by the UC Irvine Brain Initiative and The Kavli Foundation. The goal of this workshop was to explore more practically what the minimum set of requirements for the Inventory should be, and how to make the Inventory accessible and useful to the global neuroscience community. The workshop included a series of information blitzes on existing platforms and expertise, which is being used to inform Inventory development. A meeting summary is available here.
A publication summarizing the two workshops is currently under development, with plans for publication in a major neuroscience journal. The Inventory Working Group is currently exploring options for an Inventory platform and welcomes feedback from the global neuroscience community.