Neuroscience Collaborations Vision Statements Call

We seek vision statements to identify new, emerging breakthrough areas of neuroscience that are poised for high-impact funding by the Simons Foundation. We are interested in bold and cutting edge, idea-generating research that focuses on basic principles of brain function and may be overlooked or too risky for other funding organizations.

We will prioritize cross-disciplinary collaborations that integrate many levels of analysis, methodologies, ways of thinking, and scientific communities. We endeavor to encourage conversations within and across fields while bringing together diverse groups of researchers to investigate important questions about the basic principles of brain function. Investigators in a Simons Collaboration are expected to openly share data, code, analysis pipelines, protocols and reagents.

Vision statements should clearly outline the big idea and hypotheses that the proposed neuroscience collaboration will address, including high-level overviews of the methods and approaches that will be used. Why is this work uniquely suited for Simons Collaboration funding? Why should this collaboration be funded now? Why is it difficult to obtain funding to investigate these questions from other funding agencies and foundations? Vision statements should address why and how the support of a large collaborative research project from the Simons Foundation will transform our understanding of how the brain works. Please propose investigators who may be included in the collaboration and an estimated anticipated overall yearly total cost.

The goal of the Simons Collaborations is to bring together groups of outstanding scientists to address topics of fundamental scientific importance, with a focus on fields in which significant new developments have created novel opportunities for exploration. To enable bold, creative and innovative research, each collaboration is funded for ten years.

Current Neuroscience Collaborations at the Simons Foundation include: the  Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain (SCGB) and the Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB).