New German-Japanese collaboration in neurosciences

With assistance from the two funding organisations and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), researchers from Germany and Japan will carry out joint projects.

The importance of computational neuroscience has increased rapidly in a short period of time. In addition to using modelling to gain a better understanding of neural networks, combining neuroscientific approaches with artificial intelligence, robotics and other technical systems is becoming increasingly significant. Approaches involving medical technology, such as controlling prosthetics or writing aids through brain-machine interfaces are gaining tremendous impetus from advances in computational neuroscience.

DFG and JST began cooperating in 2006 in nanotechnology, leading to the establishment of numerous joint projects and collaborative groups.

German and Japanese researchers will now convene in Japan in Spring 2011 for a workshop, which will design a call for specific research projects, for which researchers from both countries can submit joint proposals. These will then be reviewed jointly by the DFG, the JST and the BMBF, and funded on the Japanese side by the JST and on the German side by the DFG and the BMBF.