Renewed criticism for Human Brain Project

Following an open letter in which over 600 researchers expressed concern at the narrow scientific focus and closed management style of the Human Brain Project’s (HBP) leaders, demanding an independent review and pledging to boycott HBP-related funding if not heeded, six top neuroscientists have expressed “dismay” at the HBP’s public response.

This response stated: “The HBP team issued a response, saying: “[Our members] are saddened by the open letter as we feel that it divides rather than unifies our efforts to understand the brain. However, we recognise that the signatories have important concerns about the project.”

Professor Henry Markram, the project’s leader, added in a letter to the BBC that Dr Zachary Mainen, the director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme in Portugal, who was among a group of cognitive scientists who were ‘repositioned’ outside the core of the project, may be the driving force behind the letter.

Quoted by the BBC, he said: “We have issued a formal response to explain the project better, but we will no longer be taking his open letter seriously,” Markram wrote.

The HBP is one of two Future and Emerging Technologies Flagship projects funded by the European Commission over a ten-year period.

The six new correspondents, who describe themselves as “neuroscientists in Europe who care about the success of research projects, large and small, in our field”, said: “Instead of acknowledging that there is a problem and genuinely seeking to address scientists’ concerns, the project leaders seem to be of the opinion that the letter’s 580 signatories [now over 600] are misguided.”

Professor Richard Frackowiak, a co-executive director of the HBP, conceded that perhaps communication within the project could have been “more proactive” but said its leadership had been far from autocratic. Quoted by the BBC, he said: “We remain a project that is totally open and is building infrastructures for the use of the whole community.”.

The Commission has responded to the open message, thanking the authors for their feedback and pointing to a “rigorous annual review” scheduled for January 2015.

Asked whether that review would be transparent and independent, as requested by the signatories, a spokesperson told the BBC it would “take into account the requests contained in the open letter… while respecting the existing rules which are related to data protection”.