On the occasion of the Brussels 20 km race that will take place on 31 May 2015, the European Brain Council has decided to shine a light on the benefits of physical exercise on the brain. It is already well known that aerobic exercise can help reducing the risks of almost every known disease involving your heart, your lungs and [...]

Today in Europe – and beyond –, many people suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurodegenerative diseases are confronted to difficulties to access job markets. For this reason, the European Multiple Sclerosis Platform (EMSP) and MEP Rosa Estaras Farragut organised a conference in the European Parliament on March 24, in order to discuss the role of the newly elected [...]

(Munich, 19-20.03.2015) On 19th and 20th March 2015, a MARATONE project meeting took place at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. MARATONE (“Mental Health Training through Research Network in Europe”) is a Marie Curie Skłodowska Initial Training Network that is funded under the 7th Research Framework Programme and of which EBC is an associated partner. At the beginning of the project, [...]

Dementia is a growing issue for global public health, and one of the major health challenges for our generation. 47 million people currently live with dementia, and, as the population is ageing, this figure is expected to triple by 2050 (for more facts, see WHO infographic). In the light of this data, the World Health Organisation (WHO) hosted on 16th-17thMarch 2015, [...]

On March 10th, the European Brain Council (EBC) met with Leon Delvaux, President Juncker’s adviser on Health and Food Safety, and Sigrid Wimmer from DG SANCO. The following issues were addressed: Horizon 2020 budget cuts: The main purpose of this meeting was to introduce EBC’s work, and present a position paper endorsed by EBC members regarding Horizon 2020 budget cuts [...]

Is pension at the age of 70 Europe's future? The Summit on Innovation for Active and Healthy Ageing took place in Brussels on 9-10 March 2015. The European Commission invited participants to discuss how Europe can address the challenges and seize the opportunities arising from demographic change through ICT and innovation. A number of European Commissioners, national ministers, regional authorities [...]

In November 2014, a first Seminar on the “Value of Health” was held in Brussels and led to the elaboration of a scoping paper examining the various approaches and frameworks to measure healthcare outcomes in Europe. Further to this, a roundtable was organized on March 5, 2015, to discuss “Healthcare Outcomes as a Drive for Sustainable Health Systems”. Nowadays, healthcare [...]

Voices of protesters for and against animal testing are once again about to rise. On March 3rd, the Stop Vivisection European Citizen’s Initiative was submitted to the European Commission, after collecting almost 1,2 million signatures. The goal of this initiative – only the 3rd one to be successful since the launch of the citizen’s initiative programme – is to tackle [...]

“If you want walk fast walk alone, if you want walk far walk together”, this African proverb cited by Dr. Karim Berkouk, Deputy Head of Unit ‘Non-Communicable Diseases and the Challenge of Healthy Aging European Commission, summarises at the best the take-home message of the EBC seminar: “Criteria for success: The future of collaborative brain research” that took place in [...]

On March 3rd 2015, European Research Ministers met and reiterated their willingness for open science. Further to this event, DG CONNECT organized on the next day a workshop on “Open Data on e-infrastructure and services for Neuroscience”. This was motivated by the fact that the European Commission believes that Neuroscience is a particularly active field of research, whose needs and [...]