.: NENS Founding Assembly, Berlin 12./13. Dec 2003

Minutes of the founding assembly For some time now, its high degree of fragmentation has been recognized as one of the main weaknesses of European research. And a science as interdisciplinary as neuroscience covering a very broad range of sub-disciplines from molecular neurobiology to functional imaging to neuropsychology and linguistics, suffers all the more from lack of interaction and interrelated research. Thus, led by the desire to overcome this fragmentation in the medium to long term, the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) and the International Graduate Program Medical Neurosciences at Berlin's Charité decided to tackle the problem "bottom up", attempting to link European neuroscience research at the training stage already. The meeting in Berlin was organized by Prof. Helmut Kettenmann, Prof. Ulrich Dirnagl and Lutz Steiner.

As a result, close to 35 neuroscience training programmes from 14 different European countries gathered in Berlin on 12 and 13 December 2003. The goal of this meeting was three fold:

1. to get familiar with each other and to get an overview over the breadth neuroscience programmes offer in Europe
2. to discuss matters of general interest to all programmes such as definition of curricula, criteria for admission, funding opportunities, etc.
3. to promote networking and closer cooperation between the programmes

Friday afternoon, the meeting started with a brief self-introduction of all the attendees so that everyone got an idea of who everyone else was. We then continued with a series of presentations by invited guest speakers covering the following topics:

• examples of good practice in international recruiting
• the origins and development of ECTS and its intended application in the future
• the activities and structure of the International Brain Research Organization and what the organization can do for the programmes
• promoting neurosciences at the high school level as does the European Dana Alliance for the Brain (EDAB), e.g. during the brain awareness week
• the way in which our US counterparts are successfully networked through Association of Neuroscience Departments and Programs (ANDP)
• existing national and international cooperation among European programmes such as NEUREX-ELTEM (Basel, Freiburg, Strasbourg) or EURON (Aachen, Bonn, Bruxelles, Köln, Düsseldorf, Homburg, Jülich, Leuven, Liège, Louvain, Maastricht)

In the evening, a social gathering at the Virchow ruin allowed the representatives of the various programmes to get to know one another in a more casual setting and to exchange ideas and information over a glass of wine. The Virchow ruin, by the way, is an old lecture hall in which Rudolf Virchow used to give his lectures and which now house a museum with his preparations and serves as event location to the Charité's Institute of Pathology. On the second day, participants had the opportunity to break out into discussion groups concerned with the following issues:

• What constitutes a core curriculum in neuroscience? (Prof. Dr. Harry Steinbusch)
• What possibilities for fund raising are there? (Prof. Dr. Ulrich Dirnagl)
• What can possible cooperation look like? (Prof. Dr. Denise Manahan-Vaughan)

Of course, there were no comprehensive answers to any of these questions. To the contrary, the discussions produced more questions than answers. But ideas were juggled and options shown. Each group was chaired by the person indicated above whose job it was to lead the discussion and, more importantly, to serve as driving force in their respective thematic area for future workshops.

The main result of the meeting was the launch of the Network of European Neuroscience Schools (NENS) under the tutelage of FENS. NENS subscribed to three major goals :

1. Raising the profile of European Neuroscience Programs
2. Raising the access to the European Neuroscience Programs
3. Creating an infrastructure for smaller networks/ cooperation of European neuroscience programmes

As a start, the FENS office in Berlin will develop and maintain a website for NENS providing information on the network proper and on issues of relevance to it. The main feature of this website will be a comprehensive listing of neuroscience programmes in Europe in form of a registry, based on the example of the ANDP.

The chairs of the discussion groups, Drs. Ulrich Dirnagl (Berlin), Denise Manahan-Vaughan (Bochum), Kiki Thermos (Heraklion) and Harry Steinbusch (Maastricht), were asked to form a steering committee charged with pushing ahead NENS and preparing an agenda for the follow up meeting, at which NENS will officially be launched. This meeting is planned immediately preceding the FENS meeting in July 2004 in Lisbon.

Steering Committee

In the end, everyone attending the meeting agreed that such an initiative was overdue and that NENS has the potential to become a very important medium in the exchange of ideas and expertise and in finding partners for cooperation. It is bound to help overcome fragmentation in European neuroscience research.

Minutes: Ulrich Dirnagl, Lutz Steiner