Concerns over large-scale research project on human brain

Background

In 2011, the Commission launched its future and emerging technologies (FET) flagships, ie large-scale “visionary” research initiatives addressing issues across scientific disciplines. Out of six pilot projects, two were selected and fully launched in 2013: the Graphene Flagship and the Human Brain Project (HBP). With a budget of €1.19 billion over the next ten years, the HBP involves 112 partners (universities and companies) from 24 countries, most of them in Europe, but also including the United States, China, Japan, Canada, Argentina and Israel. The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland coordinates the project. The consortium’s mission is to make biology and ICT converge, to better understand the human brain by overcoming the “fragmentation of brain research and the data it produces”. It involves various disciplines: neuroscience, medicine, robotics and future computing technology.