BrainTwin

Forschungspolitik & Entwicklung

Development of a World-Level Neuroengineering Research Centre by European Twinning

BrainTwin enhances networking activities, strengthens research collaboration and enables knowledge transfer between TUIASI and EU partners.

BrainTwin - Development of a World-Level Neuroengineering Research Centre by European Twinning is a Horizon 2020-funded project under the Spreading Excellence and Widening Participation scheme. It is a twinning action and as such its activities are directed towards one main beneficiary (NEUROTWIN is another Twinning project with participation of ZSI that is already running)

Partnership: This main beneficiary is the Technical University Gheorghe Asachi of Iasi in Romania (TUIASI). One of TUIASI's scientific priorities is in the field of neuroengineering. Neuroengineering is a discipline with high potential for the future that uses engineering techniques to study, restore, replace, or enhance neural systems. It comprises the application of engineering principles and techniques to the field of neurosciences. Through the collaboration with partners from Germany (Fraunhofer Society, Steinbeis), Spain (University of Salamanca) and Austria (ZSI) the Technical University of Iasia can network, strengthen its research collaboration in the field of neuroengineering and benefit from a knowledge transfer in the good standards of managing EU funded projects more general.

Background: Bringing together research departments from medical sciences and engineering fields bears the potential to achieve further significant progress e.g. in the comprehension and care of neurodegenerative diseases, as well as in the development of brain-connected prosthetics.
The city of Iasi in the North-East of Romania is a strong research and higher education hotspot. TUIASI is an excellent university in engineering fields and is part of the North East Regional Innovative Cluster for Structural and Molecular Imaging (the only medical imaging cluster in Romania). For this reason, TUIASI puts forward a strategy to develop a new centre for research and education in the field of neuroengineering. In order to realise these efforts, strong support of international partners, being leaders in their respective research fields, is needed.

This twinning exercise enhances the scientific and technological capacity of TUIASI by exchanging knowledge with a focus on early stage researchers, by strengthening the research management skills of TUIASI's staff, and by increasing the visibility of Romanian neuroengineering research both nationally and internationally in order to better compete for funding in the future.

Role of ZSI: ZSI is a partner in BrainTwin and its main responsibility is to lead work package 7 on Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation. In this capacity, ZSI works on the following actions:

Overall management and execution of the project's communication, dissemination and exploitation activities
Putting in place activities to increase the public visibility of TUIASI both in Romania and within the EU
Support to provide outputs generated by the project to selected target groups in order to faciliate their further exploitation
Connect TUIASI with new partners from the EU in view of future applications for EU funding

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