The Human Brain Project (HBP) is an ambitious 10 years long research initiative, and part of the EU flagship program whose goal is to developp innovative ICT platforms that will help neuroscientists integrating data and knowledge about the brain across all levels of its spatial and temporal organisation (from genes to behaviour, into detailed reconstructions and simulations) with the aim of better understanding the functioning of the human brain and its diseases.

Object of this Call for Expressions of Interest (CEoI)

It is expected that four project Groups of Partners will be selected for EU funding. Each proposal selected will form a separate Work Package. The four Work Packages selected will form a new “Systems and Cognitive Neuroscience” Subproject (a new SP3). The Work Package leaders will select their SP leader, who will coordinate the SP and represent it in the HBP governance. Upon selection, the Partners will all become full Members of the HBP Consortium.

Topics: The selected Projects should contribute to the aims of the HBP, addressing a cognitive function in "Systems and Cognitive Neuroscience", and thereby link the existing HBP Subprojects by addressing ambitious cognitive and systems neuroscience questions.

Proposed activities should include highly innovative scientific knowledge, concepts and models that bring the field closer to the solution of a concrete and important problem in cognitive and systems neuroscience, in an interdisciplinary research approach. In particular, the research theme you will be proposing should reflect as many of the following HBP crosscutting requirements as possible:

- Bridge from basic anatomy and physiology to mapping and cognition, plus theory and modelling.

- Use and/or feed at least 2 HBP Platforms including specification of data and/or tools.

- Include two or more spatial and/or temporal scales.

- Provide actual simulation models and/or disease models related to the cognitive function you will study.

- Offer real-world applications (e.g. software, atlases, robotics, neuromorphic computing, drug design, etc.).

Eligibility:

- Proposals must be submitted by Groups of Partners consisting of 3-5 major research laboratories established in at least two different EU Member States or H2020 Associated Countries.

- Only Groups of Partners consisting of high-level partners, research labs from academia or industry, have a chance of getting funded.

- Any organization/institution eligible for EU-funding can participate, including existing partners of the HBP project as well as institutions without a former involvement in HBP.

- Participation in more than one proposal is possible.

Duration: the project duration should be 2 years (1 April 2016 to 31 March 2018).

Funding: The total EU-funding reserved for this call is EUR 8.9 million. It will be distributed according to the following scheme:

- EUR 2 million per Group of Partners maximum (for 4 Groups of Partners selected for funding through this call).

- EUR 0.9 million reserved for the coordination of the SP Work Package.

Submission process: Applicants should submit their proposals through the HBP proposal submission system that will be available here soon. Applicants can submit as many times as their like until the deadline. The most recent version will be considered for evaluation.

Deadlines:

- VHIR internal deadline: 26 July 2015

- Official deadline: 3 July 2015 at 17:00 CET

For more information, see the Guide for Applicants and the Proposal Template