HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY, GERMANYComputational simulation of the human brain at Heidelberg University, Germany HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY, GERMANY
The Executive Committee of the Human Brain Project (HBP), a €1 billion effort launched in 2013 by the European Commission to jump start research in neuroscience and computation, was dissolved in the midst of a crisis that is likely to provoke further changes in the initiative. Problems erupted in 2014, when a group of 100 neuroscientists accused program directors of mismanagement and threatened to boycott it. An evaluation committee was convened to examine the complaints, and concluded that many of them are valid. One source of criticism relates to the decision by program administration to restrict participation on the part of researchers in the field of cognitive neuroscience, which studies the biological basis of mental processes like memory and learning. The absence of scientists from that area in the upcoming stages of the project, the report says, “undercuts the ambitions of integrating and validating multiple approaches in order to simulate brain functioning.” The document also asks that experiments with primates, not originally called for, be included. The report criticizes project leader Henry Markram, a researcher from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Switzerland. “Not only is he a member of all the bodies that make decisions, execute and manage the HBP—he also occupies the presidency and supervises the administrative procedures. Furthermore, he appoints members of the management team,” the report says. The HBP involves 130 research institutions in 26 countries.
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