Collaborative projects awarded funding to advance neurotechnology education across Europe
Ten collaborative projects bringing together partners across the NeurotechEU alliance have been selected for funding through the NeurotechEU Collaboration Funding Call. Karolinska Institutet is involved in four of them.
Launched in March, the call invited researchers, educators and professional staff from NeurotechEU institutions to develop collaborative initiatives that support the alliance's mission of transforming higher education in brain research and neurotechnology. Funding was awarded to projects that promote educational excellence, interdisciplinarity, mobility and sustainable activities with benefits across the alliance. Following a competitive evaluation process, the selection committee chose ten projects representing a wide range of disciplines, institutions and educational approaches. The funded initiatives span topics including neuroscience education, healthy ageing, sleep technology, neuroimaging, addiction research, microsurgery, brain organoids, digital learning environments and support for carers of people living with neurodegenerative diseases.
Abishek Arora, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Women's and Children's Health (KBH), is the lead coordinator of the Fundamentals of Bioengineering Brain Organoids project and a co-lead of the Advancements in Experimental Microsurgery project. He highlights the importance of this call "for early career researchers who would like to play an active role in coursework and pedagogical development that are usually only under the purview of senior academics," and notes that it has "led to increased interactions with the alliance partners so that we can build courses using our combined best teaching practices." Depending on the students' response over the coming months, Abishek hopes to continue enhancing and offering these courses. "We hope that NeurotechEU continues to invest in our students’ future by launching similar calls," he adds.
The funded projects
- Neurokraken 3D: Challenge-Based Learning inside the Digital Lab (Medical University of Innsbruck and Radboud University)
- Smart Sleep: Exploring the Future of Sleep Measurements (Medical University of Innsbruck, Karolinska Institutet, Radboud University, and Reykjavik University). Applications are currently open.
- Pharmacological and Molecular Fundaments of Tolerance and Addiction (Karolinska Institutet, Medical University of Innsbruck)
- Harmonized Quantitative MRI: Integrating BIDS for Multiparametric Mapping Across Species (Boğaziçi University, Radboud University)
- Advancements in Experimental Microsurgery (Universitatea de Medicină și Farmacie din Cluj-Napoca, Karolinska Institutet, Boğaziçi University)
- Fundamentals of Bioengineering Brain Organoids (Karolinska Institutet, Boğaziçi University, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche, Universitatea de Medicină și Farmacie din Cluj-Napoca)
- Innovative Pilot Training in a Positive Approach of Neurogerontology, Targeting Participants Aged 55+ (University of Lille, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche)
- MoveLab: Cross-Institutional Challenge-Based Learning - Motion Capture Analysis of Pathological Gait in Ataxia (University of Bonn, Radboud University, Medical University of Innsbruck, Reykjavik University)
- NeuroCarers: Co-Creation of Challenge-Based Learning Materials on Neurodegenerative Diseases, Carers Burden, and Neurotechnologies (Universitatea de Medicină și Farmacie din Cluj-Napoca, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche)
- Methods in Neuroscience: Essential neuroscience methods and techniques in systems neuroscience with online lectures and in-person practical training at NeurotechEU partner universities (Radboud University, Reykjavík University, University of Bonn, University of Lille)