An atmosphere of excitement and collaboration at the final summit of the Human Brain Project. Researchers, speakers, exhibitors and members of the public had the opportunity to meet in person at the Palais du Pharo in Marseille during the two Science Market days.

Curious looks at the neuromorphic booth, run by the Kirchhoff Institute for Physics, Heidelberg University, where people gathered around an assembly of neuron-shaped chips that replicated a network of so-called leaky integrate-and-fire neurons, illustrating the architecture of a neuromorphic system. “The underlying principle is the same behind our BrainScales neuromorphic chips,” explains Andreas Grübl, Head of the Electronics Department at Kirchhoff Institute for Physics.

Visitors got a full panorama of digital brain research in all its facets. One booth, run by Dennis Terhorst, Coordinator of Software Development at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany, displayed all of them on a map, representing EBRAINS as a country and helping researchers orient themselves within the different services, datasets and workflows when trying to answer their scientific questions. 

At the ethics and diversity booth, the innovation booth and the partnership booth burning questions of academics were addressed. “The question we get asked the most is about compliance: how do I make sure that my research not only follows the law but also ethical principles?” explains Sim Akintoye, Senior Lecturer in Law at De Monfort University and Data Protection Officer at HBP. “Law and ethics are not synonyms. To help HBP researchers, we have developed an Ethics, Diversity and Inclusion toolkit, freely available to anyone.” 

The position paper “The Coming Decade of Digital Brain Research” was also presented at the Open Day – a collaborative endeavour with 98 authors from 90 institutions that presents a common vision for the research field. All researchers are invited to have their names added to the list of supporters.

Text by Roberto Inchingolo