1. Neuroinformatics in the United Kingdom David Willshaw Institute for Adaptive & Neural Computation School of Informatics University of Edinburgh, UK

2. Summary of talk 1.Definition of Neuroinformatics 2.How to Organise Neuroinformatics on a National and an International Scale 3.Neuroinformatics Activities in the UK - the science 4.Neuroinformatics Activities in the UK - organisation 5.Neuroinformatics Related Activities/Events/Schemes 6.Self-reflection: Lessons for the UK

3. 1. Definition of Neuroinformatics

4. Neuroinformatics “… Combines neuroscience and informatics research to develop and apply the advanced tools and approaches that are essential for major advances in understanding the structure and function of the brain.” Report of the OECD Megascience Forum Biological Informatics Working Group Neuroinformatics Subgroup, 1998

5. The three pillars of neuroinformatics NEUROSCIENCE DATA & DATABASES SOFTWARE TOOLS COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE Analysis Simulation GENERAL COMPUTATIONAL PRINCIPLES

6. 2. How to Organise Neuroinformatics on a National and International Scale

7. Possible ways of integrating neuroinformatics worldwide 1. Centralised Has a physical Centre, to which all other geographical units are related as satellites Simple structure (and management?) ‘Easy’ to justify to national funding bodies, especially if there is a local central mass of expertise Dominated by Centre, requiring satellites to buy in on the Centre’s terms

8. Possible ways of integrating neuroinformatics worldwide 2. Federated Many equal partners Distributed management, with minimal central coordination Covers many geographical regions and all of neuroinformatics No insistence on common standards To be plausible to national funding bodies this requires lots of real international collaborations Loose management structure may be a drawback

9. Possible ways of integrating neuroinformatics worldwide 3. Local first, global afterwards Easier to form a committed local community then a committed global one Easier to deal with local concerns locally Easier to argue for generic methodologies locally than globally But how to do the joining up?

10. These models have been proposed – what has happened? 1.Centralised: lacks wide international commitment to particular aims of project 2.Federated: its focus had to be made much narrower than initially envisaged, to satisfy the funding agency but making it less satisfactory to the neuroinformatics community at large 3.Local first, global afterwards: we must all try to get the local bit right first

11. 3. Neuroinformatics Activities in the UK - the science

12. The mechanism for the propagation of the impulse (1952) A L Hodgkin and A F Huxley, J. Physiol., 117, 500-544 (1952) Conductance is voltage-dependent….

13. Marr’s (1969) model for the role of the cerebellum in associative learning

14. Features of UK neuroinformatics From Sept 2001 workshop Features: lots of modelling work (hippocampus, basal ganglia, visual system, developmental), brain imaging, a few databases (eg, for Drosophila), small but significant activity in tools Concerns: long term support of neuroinformatics tools lack of credit assigned to neuroinformatics practitioners standards: cottage industry preferred over Microsoft model need to compete for funding with strong UK bioinformatics community little track record in industrial/commercial collaboration coordination of the various UK funding schemes desirable

15. 4. Neuroinformatics Activities in the UK - organisation The three most relevant of the seven UK Research Councils: MRC – Medical Research Council (£490M p.a) BBSRC – Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (£270M p.a.) EPSRC – Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (£560M or 800MEuro p.a.)

16. Steps towards developing UK neuroinformatics 1996 1999 2001 Workshop in Edinburgh to inform MRC Neurosciences and Mental Health Board EPSRC/MRC/BBSRC workshop in Abingdon bringing together neuroscientists, biologists and computer scientists with funding agencies MRC/EPSRC workshop in Edinburgh attended by ~50 neuroinformaticians and potential neuroinformaticians

17. Steps towards developing UK neuroinformatics 2004 - 2007 ESRC/MRC/BBSRC funded Network in Neuroinformatics Goals of the Network: –To establish the community –To examine state of UK neuroinformatics –To scope out areas of likely development –This will act as the UK node in the OECD recommended scheme

18. UK Neuroinformatics Network work plan

19. 5. Neuroinformatics Related Activities/Events/Schemes

20. Activities/events/schemes specific to neuroinformatics 1999- 2002 - 2004 2000 - 2002 2002 - 2007 2002 - 2005 Neuroinformatics PhD studentships/fellowships (MRC) Summer school in neuroinformatics (EPSRC) Workshops on high performance neuroinformatics (EPSRC/MRC) Programme Grant in computational neuroscience (MRC) eScience grant on computational tools for neuroinformatics (MRC/BBSRC)

21. Activities/events/schemes with a wider remit 2001 - 2004 2002 - 2003 £120M UK Government Initiative in eScience (eScience: “science undertaken through distributed global collaborations enabled by the Internet, involving large of complex data collections, terascale computing resource and high performance visualisation”) UK Government Foresight Initiative in Cognitive Systems –Initiative by scientists that brings together life scientists, computer scientists/engineers to help each other to understand (natural) cognitive systems to build better (artificial) cognitive systems

22. Activities/events/schemes with a wider remit 2001 2002 - 2003 2002 - 2003 2003 EPSRC Life Sciences Interface Programme established –£20M call for research into Novel Computation 16 clusters of scientists given funding to develop proposals –£35M Doctoral Training Programme in the Life Sciences 7 centres established, each offering 50 4-year PhD studentships in subjects at the intersection of the life sciences and the physical/computer sciences, maths & engineering –The centre at Edinburgh is dedicated to neuroinformatics –Two other neuroinformatics related centres (biological modelling, UCL; mathematical biology, Warwick) £10M MRC programme in multidisciplinary approaches to mental health and neurodegenerative diseases BBSRC initiative in predictive/systems biology

23. 6. Self-reflection: Lessons for the UK Need to involve many different agencies, funding bodies (Wellcome Trust?) Need to link into existing schemes which have strong neuroinformatics components Need to profit from current UK interest in bringing together life scientists and “physical” scientists Need to examine teaching provision But the infrastructure to develop UK neuroinformatics is in place!

24. Nature, 427, 275 (22 January 2004) Ministers prepare to back neuroscience network [PARIS] Brain scientists around the world wrestling with the thorny problem of how to share their data should soon find their lives getting a little easier. Plans for an international facility to integrate such information are expected to be endorsed next week at a meeting in Paris of 30 science ministers from countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The planned International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility would bring together disparate neuroscience databases to allow researchers to share and compare their results more readily (see Nature, 406, 822-825; 2000). The facility would build its own databases, nurture agreements between nations on data sharing, and even fund some research on neuroinformatics, says Stefan Michalowski, executive secretary of the OECD’s Global Science Forum. The annual cost of the administrative body that would run the facility would be about US$1.2 million.