Biology

The EU budget has provided more than EUR 1.9 billion for brain research since the start of the EU framework programme for research, FP7, in 2007. This has funded more than 1200 projects with more than 1500 participants from the EU and beyond. Looking back on the 'European Month of the Brain' in May, we take a retrospective look at the range of brain-related research projects the EU is funding in the field of 'Information and communications technologies' (ICT).

Some 165 million Europeans are likely to experience some form of brain-related disease during their life. As the population ages, Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative or age-related mental disorders are affecting more people and contributing to higher health costs. Finding better ways of preventing and treating brain diseases is therefore becoming urgent, and understanding how our brains work is important to keep our economies at the forefront of new information technologies and services. EU-funded research is answering these challenges.