EBRA · European Brain Research Area

Brain research in Europe is a rapidly evolving field, and increasingly at the forefront of science. The complexity of understanding physiological brain functions and brain diseases brings responsibilities to develop novel tools and approaches to advance our understanding of unknown basic brain functions, as well as opportunitiesto generate novel therapeutic approaches, thus confronting with a major societal challenge in Europe and worldwide. Considering the costs of brain diseases for the European society, and that these costs will increase considerably in the coming years due to the ageing of the European population, the EU and its Member States have made considerable investments in brain research leading to a significant increase of initiatives in this area. Although these initiatives have generated considerable amounts of knowledge and innovative approaches, the translation into new health interventions is hindered by the complexity of the challenge and by excessive fragmentation of the efforts. Effective and efficient collaboration and cooperation among the various initiatives are often identified as a key success factor to achieve brain research full impact. In particular, there is a constant need for strengthening the information flow and accelerating the exchange of experience on the on-going and future projects as well as maintaining continuous dialogue between all the stakeholder groups and initiatives to allow that objectives are aligned and needs are met. EBRA will fully respond to these needs by bringing together the various stakeholders and major brain research initiatives, at European level and beyond, and creating the conditions for real and effective cross fertilisation, dialogue, building consensus and exploiting research potential to deliver new health interventions in brain disorders.