EBRAINS (European Brain ReseArch INfrastructureS) is a European research infrastructure that brings together a set of state-of-the-art digital platforms, designed and developed by the scientific community to meet the needs for analysis and processing of large datasets (Big Data) on the brain. It is an offshoot of the Human Brain-Project (HBP), selected and funded in 2013 as one of the three flagship projects of the European Union.
Its main objective is to model, simulate and emulate brain function from the maximum amount of data possible to obtain predictive, efficient and useful representations for the understanding of brain function and its pathologies. EBRAINS also aims to design new bio-inspired technologies (in robotics, artificial intelligence, computer science and neuromorphic systems, etc).
The EBRAINS infrastructure comprises six categories of facilities and services: two services of i) research and ii) Fair Data and Knowledge services; iii) unique brain atlases, providing spatial reference systems for neuroscience, including the atlas of the human brain, unique in the world in its current performance; iv) processing and computing chains for modeling and simulation, artificial intelligence and robotics ; v) a brain records data platform, Medical Informatics Platform (MIP), with a unique medical focus; vi) interactive processing chains for high-performance computing (neurobotics platform) and neuromorphic computing systems. The NeuroSpin and SHFJ teams are among the users of the services offered by EBRAINS for their research.
EBRAINS is an International Non-Profit Association (AISBL), under Belgian law, functioning as a distributed operational platform, operated by HBP and involving ten european countries including France. It is the CEA, on behalf of France, which is now leading the project to include EBRAINS on the roadmap of ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures). EBRAINS' candidature having been judged admissible in November 2020, it will be auditioned in spring 2021, the challenge being to ensure the sustainability of the structure beyond 2023 (end of HBP funding). EBRAINS should play a pioneering role in the neuroscience community by being a collaborative tool for research on the brain and its pathologies, while promoting the development of neurotechnologies and bio-inspired computing. EBRAINS is also a catalyst for discoveries in neuroscience, industrial innovations and original medical treatments.
EBRAINS website : https://ebrains.eu/