Human Brain Project opens up its data repositories to new users

The EU’s Human Brain Project (HBP) has opened up six of its prototype computing platforms to scientists outside the project consortium for the first time.

“Starting today, we warmly welcome the wider scientific community to begin using these platforms and improve them,” said Philippe Gillet, the HBP coordinator and provost of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), speaking on Wednesday.

The platforms cover fields including neuroscience; brain simulation; high performance computing; medical informatics; neuromorphic engineering; and neurorobotics.

Heidelberg university professor Karlheinz Meier, who is co-leader of the HBP’s neuromorphic platform, said feedback from scientists will help improve prototype functionality and ease of use.

Access to hardware, open source software, databases and programming interfaces is not automatic however: new users first have to request entry to the HBP’s so-called “collaboratory” via email.

The opening up of the platforms ticks off a key milestone for the 112 partner mega-project, which aims to better understand the brain using information and computing technologies, primarily through simulation.

The move can also be seen as a way to help restore lost confidence and improve the scientific validity of a project that fell into disarray in 2014, when over 800 neuroscientists put their name to a protest letter criticising the ambitious emphasis on large-scale mapping of the brain over traditional, small-scale bench research.

Following substantial restructuring of the troubled initiative, the European Commission gave the HBP a renewed vote of confidence last November, guaranteeing its funding until at least 2019.