OECD

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Over the past few years, in the context of the OECD Megascience Forum, the topic of Neuroinformatics was tackled by the Working Group on Biological Informatics. The group was established in 1996, and provided its defining report (PDF) to the Forum in January 1999. In the report, the new field of Neuroinformatics (NI) was defined as "the combination of neuroscience and information sciences to develop and apply advanced tools and approaches essential for a major advancement in understanding the structure and function of the brain." The report concluded with several recommendations and a work plan to further nurture this field. The ultimate goal is to create a global Knowledge Management (KM) system for all data relating to nervous system function. The Neuroinformatics Working Group just released its 49-page final report (PDF) in June 2002. It further defines the earlier recommendations, and provides an integrative structure to support this field.

Summaries of both of these reports are provided below.

1. Forum Report of the Neuroinformatics (NI) Subgroup January 1999

   The January 1999 Forum meeting affirmed NI as a highly important emerging field. The Forum also requested a clearer justification and a more precise plan for the continued work of the NI Subgroup under the Global Science Forum (GSF). In January 2000 this plan was submitted to the OECD Global Science Forum and a Working Group on Neuroinformatics, named GSF-NI, was approved and established by the OECD with a two year mandate. GSF-NI will focus on the following three main objectives:

   1. Resource Activities Collating and making available to the general community an inclusive listing of neuroinformatics resources. This list will include neuroscience databases, neuroinformatics tools, and computational methods for analyzing, modeling and simulating brain function. This listing will be generated by the members of the new GSF-NI group and individual scientists, and will also rely on input from national funding agencies.
   2. Guidelines Develop database guidelines for content, organization, quality control, and standards to ensure interoperability and longevity of the neuroscience databases. Develop a capability to facilitate the distribution of neuroinformatics tools and computational methods for modeling brain function, and assist in maintenance of such tools and methods. Initiate a dialogue about changes in the way researchers are evaluated and rewarded in an evolving field of shared databases and interdisciplinary collaboration.
   3. Sustainability Create the Neuroinformatics Portal, an Internet-based knowledge repository for Neuroinformatics applications and neuroscience data, providing e-services for scientists, governments and citizens. Technical issues will be deliberated, including questions related to intellectual property rights, privacy and funding.  The Working Group will develop an operational and business plan for its start-up, initially with government backing with long term maintenance through commercial support. It will collaborate with individual governments to establish National Neuroinformatics Nodes and help to develop a list of responsibilities for these nodes to sustain the global Neuroinformatics network.
2. Final Report of the GSF Neuroinformatics (NI) Working Group June 2002. To successfully understand the nervous system, the scientific community should openly share fractionated data [of enormous diversity] and integrate them into broad new knowledge. To rise to this challenge of integration, and to ensure efficient and maximum use of these data, [need] to (i) develop neuroscience data- and knowledge bases, (11) develop analytical modeling tools; and (iii) develop computational models. This challenge is being met through the merging of information science with the neurosciences -- the field of Neuroinformatics. Three germane issues to create a global neuroinformatics capacity are, Resources, Guidelines and Sustainability.

   The issue of Resources has been addressed by the creation of two Web resources:

   1. http://www.neuroinf.org is situated in Antwerp Belgium, and offers communication services.
   2. http://www.neuroinf.de is located in Berlim Germany, and is developed in accordance with the recommendations for data and software sharing made by the Working Group. It is the entry portal to neuroscience databases and neuroinformatics tools available on the Internet.

   Guidelines have been drafted for electronic data and method sharing, and the Working Group encourages further development of these guidelines and ontologies by the full neuroscience community.

   Sustainability requires the creation of a new infrastructure to support the activities of neuroinformatics. To facilitate its coordination,

   1. National neuroinformatics research programs should be continued or initiated. Each country should have a national node to both provide research resources nationally and to serve as the contact for national and international coordination.
   2. An International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Council should be established [to] coordinate the implementation of a global neuroinformatics network through integration of national neuroinformatics nodes.
   3. A new international funding scheme should be established [to] eliminate national and disciplinary barriers and provide a most efficient approach to global collaborative research and data sharing. in this new scheme, each country will be expected to fund [its] participating researchers.