Dear Colleagues,
As we enter another important year for the European Brain Council (EBC), we are delighted to take a moment to reflect and celebrate the accomplishments of 2024 through our Annual Report.
As EBC’s mandate continues to grow and expand across the national, European and global levels, it was certainly a busy year. Furthermore, as policy and advocacy remain the organisation’s raison d’être, 2024 was a crucial year. Elections swept across a majority of Europe and within the European Parliament, bringing new opportunities to engage with policymakers – old and new – and call for increased prioritisation of brain research and overall brain health in the new mandate.
This fostered the No Health Without Brain Health campaign in March coupled with EBC’s Election Manifesto. The campaign, which ran until the formation of a new Parliament and Commission, outlined why EU policymakers need to recognise the urgency to place the brain higher on health and research policy agendas to ensure that more resources are channelled towards prevention, intervention and research. This focused around EBC’s key research policy priority areas, highlighting the importance of life sciences, the use of animals in medical research, more incentives for innovation in research and more. Furthermore, calls within the campaign and manifesto were strengthened by the establishment of the EBC-led EU Health Policy Platform Thematic Network calling for the establishment of an EU Coordination Plan for the Brain. This strengthened our work also with National Brain Councils, welcoming the leadership of our national counterparts as they work to establish National Brain Plans back home, with work underway in Norway, Finland, Poland and Spain – to name a few. More to come in 2025!
Momentum at the global level also grew exponentially, seeing the formation of the Global Brain Coalition in partnership with like-minded leaders in the space, including the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative, Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, BRAIN Africa, Brain Capital Alliance and UsAgainstAlzheimer’s. With this core group, EBC was able to host a milestone, high-level event at the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York across two days, filled with impressive collaborations and partnerships that showcased just how important brain health and brain capital is for our society and why it needs to be centrally placed in global health policy.
Work continued within the Coordination and Support Action (CSA) BrainHealth, tasked by the European Commission to design and pave the way towards a European Brain Health Partnership. Set to start in January 2026, the consortium released important deliverables such at the stakeholder consultation, Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda and grew in its outreach and negotiation with collaborators for the upcoming Partnership.
Throughout it all, key projects and flagship initiatives continued their smooth run within 2024, including the launch of the Rethinking Schizophrenia: Beyond the Voices white paper, followed soon after by the Brain Awareness Week in the European Parliament, launching the election campaign period. During World Alzheimer’s Month, the subsequent Rethinking Alzheimer’s: From Diagnosis to Care paper debuted, followed later in the year by a roundtable in the European Parliament on the subject. The concept of a Rare Brain Disease Ecosystem was launched on the occasion of Rare Disease Day, featuring the latest work within the Value of Treatment for Brain Disorders and Value of Education projects. Work in the innovation space grew, not only culminating with the largest-ever Brain Innovation Days yet but also in EBC’s active role in the drafting of a European Charter for the Responsible Development of Neurotechnologies and within EU-funded projects such as BRAINTEASER and HEREDITARY.
This was just to mention a few of the annual highlights – it’s certainly not an exhaustive list of all the activities, publications, digital campaigns, events and meetings EBC held or took part in in 2024. It was another outstanding year for EBC, and our reach has never been as strong or wide, building partnership and gaining traction at the national, European and global levels more than ever. This would not have been achieved without the consistent support and collaboration of our Members and Partners, who EBC trusts and relies on to guide our priorities, enrich our content and work with to achieve our collective goals. For this we thank you all and hope you enjoy and appreciate this overview of everything we have achieved together this year. As always, we look forward to our continued work together and to build on our combined momentum towards our quest to put brain health at the top of health and research policy agendas.
Kind regards,
Suzanne Dickson
EBC President
Frédéric Destrebecq
EBC Executive Director