Prof. Jean-Baptiste Poline

The purpose of this session is to bring together the neuroscience research infrastructure providers to discuss the gaps, challenges, and opportunities for pooling resources and tap into each other's user base, thereby expanding the impact within the research community. The session will be divided into 3 discussion sessions. Each discussion session will be introduced by a specific repository who will introduce their service and the topic of the discussion session (i.e. gaps). Following the introduction, a panel of 5 speakers representing other infrastructures present will discuss the topic.

This session examines strategies for achieving interoperability among data, data platforms, analysis pipelines, and modeling tools across major international brain initiatives. Each initiative brings unique strengths—such as the comprehensive EBAINS platform, the U.S. BRAIN Initiative data archives and brainlife.io platform, and the marmoset and human data and tools from Japan’s Brain/MINDS project. By integrating these complementary efforts, we aim to identify new opportunities to deepen our understanding of brain function and to accelerate translational research in clinical neuroscience. A key focus will be on how detailed circuit data and computational models derived from rodent, non-human and human primate research can inform large-scale brain models to better elucidate cognitive processes and neuropsychiatric disorders. The recent rapid advances in large language models (LLMs) and their interoperability via the Model Context Protocol (MCP) further open novel pathways for harmonizing diverse data formats, ontologies, species, biophysical scales, and geographic boundaries. In this session, speakers from Europe, the United States, Canada, and Japan will share their current initiatives and perspectives on promoting global data and tool interoperability, followed by an open discussion to brainstorm collaborative frameworks and future research directions.

This session will introduce EBRAINS and INCF’s efforts to democratise neuroinformatics and make tools and resources developed by the large-scale brain initiatives more classroom ready. In addition, an example of an EBRAINS resource used in education will be presented; and participants will be introduced to the NeurotechEU, the European University Alliance of Brain and Technology.

Ensuring the long-term sustainability of neuroscience research infrastructure is a strategic priority for decision makers across government, academia, and industry. Beyond initial investments, these infrastructures must be designed, governed, and maintained to deliver value to the research community and drive progress in our understanding of the brain in health and disease. This session will examine the challenges and opportunities of sustaining neuroscience infrastructures across four key dimensions: financial, technological, organizational, and societal. By addressing these dimensions together, participants will gain practical insights on balancing competing demands, anticipating future challenges, and embedding resilience into the infrastructures that support innovation in neuroscience.