The Human Brain Project - Project Coordination Office

The Human Brain Project (HBP) is building a research infrastructure to help advance neuroscience, medicine, and computing. It is one of four FET (Future and Emerging Technology) Flagships, the largest scientific projects ever funded by the European Union.

The 10-year Project began in 2013 and directly employs some 500 scientists at more than 100 universities, teaching hospitals, and research centres across Europe.

Six ICT research Platforms form the heart of the HBP infrastructure:

• Neuroinformatics (access to shared brain data)
• Brain Simulation (replication of brain architecture and activity on computers)
• High Performance Analytics and Computing (providing the required computing and analytics capabilities)
• Medical Informatics (access to patient data, identification of disease signatures)
• Neuromorphic Computing (development of brain-inspired computing) 
• Neurorobotics (use of robots to test brain simulations)

The HBP also undertakes targeted research and theoretical studies, and explores brain structure and function in humans, rodents and other species. In addition, the Project studies the ethical and societal implications of HBP’s work.

The HBP has the following main objectives:

• Create and operate a European Scientific Research Infrastructure for brain research, cognitive neuroscience, and other brain-inspired sciences
• Gather, organise and disseminate data describing the brain and its diseases
• Simulate the brain
• Build multi-scale scaffold theory and models for the brain
• Develop brain-inspired computing, data analytics and robotics
• Ensure that the HBP's work is undertaken responsibly and that it benefits society

Next steps
In its final phase, the HBP will build and operate EBRAINS, in support of the HBP vision of harnessing multiple disciplines and computing, while advancing science, ICT and medicine, to the benefit of society. EBRAINS is a research e-infrastructure for brain research that will help the research community to analyse, share, integrate, and model data about the brain with the aim of better understanding the functioning of the human brain and its diseases. Find out more: ebrains.eu 

Project Coordination Office at Campus Biotech
The Project Coordination Office, headed by the Executive Director, manages and coordinates the HBP Core Project and acts as the intermediary between the HBP Consortium and the European Commission.