A
public
brain
awareness
fair
organized
in
Montevideo,
Uruguay,
by
2015
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Seed
Grant
awardee,
la
Sociedad
de
Neurociencias
del
Uruguay.
2016
REVIEW
FOUNDING PARTNERS
Australasian
Neuroscience
Society
(ANS)
Dana
Foundation
Federation
of
European
Neuroscience
Societies
(FENS)
International
Society
for
Neurochemistry
(ISN)
Japan
Neuroscience
Society
(JNS)
Society
for
Neuroscience
(SfN)
1
IBRO
255
rue
Saint-Honor
75007
Paris
France
Tel:
+ 33
(0)1
46
47
92
92
Email:
ibrocentral@gmail.com
Web:
www.ibro.info
Advocacy
event
at
the
Mongolian
National
University
of
Medical
Sciences,
Ulaanbaatar,
Mongolia,
organized
by
2015
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Seed
Grant
a wardee,
Mongolian
Neuroscience
Society.
BUDGET
SUMMARY
Expenses
in
2015/16,
covered
a
total
of
11
seed
grants
of
5,000
each
for
an
overall
expenditure
of
55,000.
Four
grants
each
were
awarded
to
the
Latin
American
and
Asia/Pacific
regions
and
three
to
the
African
region.
For
the
year
2016/17,
a
total
of
14
seed
grants
were
awarded.
Six
grants
of
3,300
each
were
distributed
to
Latin
America
and
four
grants
each
(5,000
per
grant)
were
awarded
to
the
African
and
Asia/Pacific
regions,
with
an
overall
expenditure
of
59,800.
Funding
for
activities
supported
by
the
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Initiative
since
2014
has
come
from
generous
contributions
made
by
IBRO,
the
Dana
Foundation,
the
Federation
of
European
Neuroscience
Societies
(FENS),
the
International
Society
for
Neurochemistry
(ISN),
the
Japan
Neuroscience
Society
(JNS)
and
the
Society
for
Neuroscience
(SfN).
REVIEW
PROCESS
Reviews
and
rankings
of
the
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Seed
Grant
applications
are
made
by
the
IBRO
African
(IBRO-ARC),
Asia/Pacific
(IBRO-APRC)
and
Latin
American
Regional
(IBRO-LARC)
Committees.
Next
year,
the
Pan-European
Regional
Committee
(IBRO-PERC)
will
also
be
involved
in
submission
reviews
for
the
European
applicants.
After
proposals
have
been
evaluated
and
ranked
by
the
appropriate
regional
committees,
they
are
then
sent
to
a
super
reviewer
who
makes
a
final
evaluation.
For
the
past
two
years,
the
super
reviewer
has
been
the
IBRO
Secretary
General.
Once
he
or
she
completes
the
final
assessment,
the
awardees
are
then
officially
reported
to
the
members
of
the
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Committee.
Review
rankings
for
2016/17:
Africa:
Out
of
18
total
applications,
7
were
ineligible,
7
were
average
and
4
were
considered
excellent.
Asia/Pacific:
Out
of
27
total
applications,
5
were
ineligible,
18
were
average/above
average
and
4
were
considered
excellent.
Latin
America:
Out
of
21
total
applications,
4
were
ineligible,
11
average
and
6
were
considered
excellent.
ASIA/PACIFIC
Four
global
advocacy
seed
grants
of
5,000
each
were
awarded
to
the
Asia/Pacific
region
in
2015.
INDIA:
Prahlad
K
Seth,
Indian
Academy
of
Neurosciences,
Lucknow
Prahlad
K.
Seth,
Senior
Advisor
to
Biotech
Park
Lucknow,
is
in
the
process
of
organizing
the
activities
supported
by
the
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Seed
Grant
and
plans
to
carry
them
out
by
the
end
of
the
year.
LATIN
AMERICA
Four
global
advocacy
seed
grants
of
5,000
each
were
awarded
to
the
Latin
American
region
in
2015.
ARGENTINA:
Ana
Beln
Elgoyhen,
Sociedad
Argentina
de
Investigacin
en
Neurociencias,
Buenos
Aires
Ana
Beln
Elgoyhen,
President
of
the
Sociedad
Argentina
de
Investigacin
en
Neurociencias
(SAN),
used
the
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Seed
Grant
to
support
advocacy
and
awareness
activities
at
the
XXX
Congress
of
the
Argentine
Society
for
Research
in
Neuroscience
and
the
societys
30th
Anniversary
in
Mar
del
Plata,
Argentina,
from
27
September
1
October
2015.
The
event
included
an
expanded
scientific
meeting
with
a
2-day
pre-meeting
course
on
State-of-the-Art
Methods
in
Neuroscience
Research
with
170
students,
3
plenary
lectures,
6
international
symposia,
2
young
investigator
symposia,
2
parallel
short
talk
sessions
for
postgraduates
and
poster
sessions
(248
presentations).
A
workshop
for
journalists
was
conducted
and
a
course
and
poster
session
on
Bridging
Neuroscience
and
Neurology
were
also
organized.
There
were
approximately
400
participants
who
enjoyed
an
environment
that
provided
active
discussions
on
the
latest
advances
in
different
areas
of
neuroscience
among
students,
researchers,
decision
makers
and
the
public.
Link:
http://www.saneurociencias.org.ar/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Program-SAN-2015_Julio-31.pdf
BRAZIL:
Cecilia
Hedin-Pereira,
Rio
de
Janeiro
Society
for
Neuroscience
(SfN)
Chapter
Cecilia
Hedin-Pereira,
Professor
at
the
Universidade
Federal
do
Rio
de
Janeiro
(UFRJ),
used
the
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Seed
Grant
to
organize
activities
for
Brazils
5th
National
Brain
Awareness
Week
from
16-20
March
2016
in
Rio
de
Janeiro.
It
provided
an
excellent
opportunity
to
raise
awareness
about
the
brain
and
its
function
in
health
and
disease
and
a
public
forum
where
advances
in
neuroscience
could
be
discussed
between
international
scientists
and
the
general
public.
Guided
visits,
ongoing
experiments,
discussions
and
talks
were
conducted
under
the
title
cdigo
neural.
These
activities
permitted
discussions
about
the
neural
code
at
the
interface
between
art
and
science,
bringing
the
public
a
different
view
about
the
signals
generated
in
the
brain
and
their
meaning,
rethinking
them
through
an
artistic
perspective.
Artist
Dandara
Dantas
transformed
musical
text
into
imagetic
scores
to
stimulate
discussions
about
neural
codes
through
her
images,
sculptures,
installations
and
audio-visual
performances.
The
public
participated
in
this
textual
transformation
as
a
real
experiment
and
analyzed
results
together
with
artists
and
scientists.
CHILE:
Andrs
Oscar
Couve
Correa,
The
Biomedical
Neuroscience
Institute,
Santiago
Andrs
Oscar
Couve
Correa,
President
of
the
Biomedical
Neuroscience
Institute
(BNI),
used
the
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Seed
Grant
to
help
establish
and
launch
a
new
scientific
platform
Loligo
Education,
an
5
AFRICA
NIGERIA:
Theresa
Ekanem,
President,
Neuroscience
Society
of
Nigeria
The
Neuroscience
Society
of
Nigeria
is
the
umbrella
body
of
neuroscientists
in
the
country
and
it
meets
annually
to
discuss
relevant
regional
priorities
in
neuroscience
and
to
share
basic
and
clinical
research
results.
Unfortunately,
neuroscience
is
still
misunderstood
nationwide.
There
is
a
lack
of
understanding
about
the
relevance
of
neuroscientists
in
health
care
delivery,
funding
constraints,
lack
of
trained
personnel,
weak
collaboration
between
clinicians
and
basic
researchers
and
no
functioning
laboratories
with
appropriate
facilities
for
research.
The
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Seed
Grant
will
allow
NSN
to
convene
a
workshop
that
will
involve
politicians,
policymakers,
university
heads,
healthcare
professionals,
students,
researchers
and
the
general
public.
It
will
provide
the
opportunity
for
the
different
stakeholder
groups
to
understand
the
importance
of
neuroscience
research
in
helping
to
alleviate
the
burden
of
neurological
conditions
such
as
depression,
schizophrenia,
Parkinsons
and
Alzheimers
diseases.
The
primary
objective
of
the
workshop
will
be
to
build
a
link
to
policymakers
that
conveys
the
need
to
fund
neuroscience
research
on
major
neurological
diseases
currently
affecting
Nigeria
and
other
African
countries
NIGERIA:
James
Olopade,
Professor,
University
of
Ibadan
Neuroscience
is
not
a
priority
in
Nigeria
nor
throughout
Africa.
There
is
a
lack
of
willingness
from
senior
colleagues
to
start
neuroscience
degree
programs,
relatively
little
interest
in
neuroscience
research
among
postgraduate
students
and
low
funding
opportunities
for
neuroscience
research.
The
Neuroscience
Group
at
the
University
of
Ibadan
is
acutely
aware
of
these
challenges,
especially
since
there
is
no
official
neuroscience
program.
With
the
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Seed
Grant,
the
Neuroscience
Group
will
run
a
series
of
IBRO
Advocacy
Lectures
targeted
at
two
audiences,
university
students
and
lecturers
and
policymakers,
in
order
to
highlight
the
importance
of
neuroscience
in
Nigeria
and
greater
Africa
and
increase
support
for
research.
The
first
lecture
will
be
given
by
Professor
Marina
Bentivoglio
who
will
speak
about
Using
Neuroscience
Research
to
Solve
the
Neurological
Challenges
of
Our
Time:
The
Role
of
Africa
and
African
Based
Research.
University
undergraduates
and
postgraduates
in
the
biological
sciences,
chemistry
and
physics
will
be
invited.
The
second
lecture
will
be
given
by
Professor
Richard
Brown
on
Developing
Neuroscience
Postgraduate
Program
in
Ibadan:
the
Expected
Gains
for
neuroscience
lecturers
and
professors,
policymakers
and
university
administrators.
SOMALILAND:
Temesgen
Sidamo
Summoro,
Dean,
Faculty
of
Pharmacy,
Edna
Adan
University
Hospital
Somaliland
in
northern
Somalia
has
one
of
the
highest
prevalence
of
mental
illness
worldwide.
Forty
percent
of
people
are
estimated
to
be
living
with
severe
mental
health
disorders,
probably
as
a
result
of
two
decades
of
civil
war,
social
stigma,
substance
abuse
and
a
huge
shortage
of
trained
professionals.
The
Edna
Adan
University
Hospital
will
organize
a
conference
with
the
aim
of
advocating
for
brain
awareness
throughout
the
country.
The
target
audience
will
include
educators,
health
professionals
from
around
the
country
and
government
officials
from
the
Ministry
of
Education
and
Health.
A
call
for
participation
and
abstract
submission
will
be
opened
in
selected
areas
of
brain
function
and
fitness
as
well
as
brain
diseases
and
disorders,
preferably
the
neuroscience
of
psychoactive
substance
use
and
dependence,
hypoxic
brain
7
ASIA/PACIFIC
In
Nepal,
less
than
1%
of
the
total
government
health
budget
is
allocated
to
mental
health,
with
one
psychiatrist
per
one
million
people.
Poor
health
facilities
and
a
lack
of
doctors
create
a
severe
problem
in
treating
adolescent
mass
hysteria,
chhopne
rog
in
Nepalese.
It
is
still
believed
to
be
caused
by
evil
spirits
or
angry
deities.
Villagers
depend
on
local
shamans
for
treatment.
Despite
neuroscience
research
that
shows
this
is
due
to
a
psychological
disorder
characterized
by
the
conversion
of
psychological
stress
into
physical
symptom
or
a
change
in
self-awareness,
the
incidence
of
mass
hysteria
is
increasing
8
10
11
12
Observing
neuronal
preparations
under
the
microscope
in
the
Brain-Dome
at
the
launch
of
Loligo
Education
organized
by
2015
IBRO
Global
Advocacy
Seed
Grant
awardee,
the
Biomedical
Neuroscience
Institute,
Santiago,
Chile.
2017
LOOKING
AHEAD
13
APPENDIX
2015/16
Seed
Grant
Evaluations
&
Example
proposal
of
continued
support
from
Egypt
(Treat
and
Teach
Initiative)
14
2016-10-24 15:50:04
Applicant ID
GA-006
First Name
Battuvshin
Last Name
Lkhagvasuren
Professional Title
Executive Director
Gender
Male
battuvshin@neuroscience.mn
Professional Address
Project Title
Project Objectives
Target Audience(s)
15
Overall, the development of science in Mongolia is still struggling with its old academic
system, limited science funding, corruption, and brain drain. We still have the old and
corrupted academic system which has been remained unchanged since the communist
regime collapsed 25 years ago. This system has the strongest negative impact on the
development of science in Mongolia. For example, information on the size, distribution,
policy of scientific research funding is closed; the rules of professorship are outdated;
the term of principal investigator is not established, and the list will be too long. General
awareness of Mongolian people for neuroscience, modern psychology, advanced
technologies in brain science or molecular biology is still very limited. Young scientists
graduated at state-of-the-art institutes in a developed country have almost no chance
to continue their career in research due to limited numbers of laboratories. In addition
to the lack of laboratories, there is no distribution company of international lab supply
companies since the infrastructures including railways, auto roads, and energy plants
are not well developed. There are also no labs that provide laboratory animals for nonclinical, clinical, and essential research services in Mongolia.
Project Region
Asia/Pacific
5000
08-01-2015
07-31-2016
Project location
Zorig street 3
Ulaanbaatar
Mongolia
Identify completed
activity/activities
Number of participants in
activity/activities
500
5/5
4/5
Comments
Yes. We have completed all the main projects we proposed successfully. However, the
additional projects on establishing a society journal and online library are in progress
and need more funding.
5/5
Comments
5/5
16
Comments
For such a small and developing society like Mongolian Neuroscience Society, this
grant was the key source for conducting public events, press conferences, and lobby
meetings to raise awareness of brain science in the country and therefore, it is of great
importance to us.
Please keep supporting this seed grant program, at least for several years, so that we
could become financially stable enough to maintain our regular activities.
In conclusion, we would like to extend our sincerest thanks and appreciation to IBRO
for this great support which made all these events possible.
17
Submission Date
2016-10-19 05:49:30
Applicant ID
GA-005
First Name
Tadaharu
Last Name
Tsumoto
Professional Title
Director
Gender
Male
tsumoto@brain.riken.jp
Professional Address
Retzius Vag 3
Solna
Stockholm
171 65
Sweden
Project Title
Project Objectives
Target Audience(s)
The general public, science communicators, journalists, law makers in the Congress
and science policy makers in the Government offices.
In Japan the Decade of Brain campaign was successfully carried out in late 1990s.
Consequently the Japanese Government provided some financial support to brain
research, and various projects such asKnowing the Brain,Creating the
Brain,Protecting the Brainand Nurturing the Brain projects were launched.
Thereafter, however, such enthusiasm about brain research faded in Japan. The
challenge is therefore to re-activate and further strenghten supports to Brain Research.
Project Region
Asia/Pacific
5000
9-14-2016
9-14-2016
Project location
Identify completed
activity/activities
4/5
18
Comments
The amount of the seed grant did not completely cover the cost of the activities but
substantially contributed to the operation of the activities.
5/5
Comments
Reflecting the public attention to Brain Scinece, the Brain Century Symposium
attracted a great number of attendants. The number of audience was as many as
about 600 so that the lecture hall was completely full.
5/5
Comments
This symposium was held in a very timely manner to focus on the current interests of
the general public and thus succeeded in advocating the importance of brain science to
society. For example, after each talk many questions were asked from the audience
and the lecturers well responded to the questions. To the audience thereafter we
distributed questionnaires about quality of the lectures and what they want to hear in
the next Symposium. Then we got very good feedbacks form the audience.
5/5
Comments
We need more solid financial supports to cover honorarium and travel costs of
qualified and well known lecturers who attract the general public.
This year the most influential news paper in Japan "Asahi Shinbun" partially supported
the activity. Consequently the attention of wider public than last year was obtained.
I am not sure about the current relationship with the Brain Awareness Week activity
that is supported by Dana Foundation. If there is no link, some links with Dana
Foundation might be desirable.
19
2016-10-18 10:06:34
Applicant ID
GA-004
First Name
Andrs
Last Name
Couve
Professional Title
PhD
Gender
Male
andres@neuro.med.uchile.cl
Professional Address
Universidad de Chile
Independencia 1027
Santiago
RM
Chile
Project Title
Loligo Education
Project Objectives
Target Audience(s)
Project Region
Latin America
5000
12-01-2015
05-30-2016
Project location
Independencia 2017
Santiago
Chile
20
Identify completed
activity/activities
4/5
Comments
5/5
Comments
5/5
Comments
Yes, this is a complementary initiative to all our efforts that include online and on-site
material, press, and social media campaign.
5/5
Comments
21
22
Submission Date
2016-10-18 08:13:41
Applicant ID
GA-003
First Name
Tamer
Last Name
Emara
Professional Title
Gender
Male
thmfe@yahoo.com
Professional Address
Egypt
Project Title
Project Objectives
Target Audience(s)
Project Region
Africa
5000
01-19-2016
01-21-2016
Project location
Identify completed
activity/activities
4/5
Comments
The seed grant shared partially in covering the expenses of inviting experts from USA
and Europe to attend the meeting. This has helped the success of the meeting.
Important links were established as a result. I value the concept of providing rapid
access seed grants to similar capacity development projects
5/5
5/5
23
5/5
May be work on mutual partnerships between IBRO and seed grant holders to
maximize sustainability
Rapid response
24
Regarding practice, 85% of stroke deaths now occur in LMIC, DALY lost due to
stroke are seven times that in high income countries, and rehab services are
offered to 3% of stroke population. Stroke incidence has increased by 100% in
the last four decades in those countries.
25
We want to work on short and intermediate term strategies that might help
reduce the gap in the number of trained neurologists as well as the deficiency
of neurology education programs in Africa. We are trying to complement the
current efforts to improve neurology education in Africa with an initiative that
has a mix of online education and onsite clinical training and working on
establishing medical services that may include a stroke unit, memory clinic,
neurorehabilitation units, or a neurology department. This would hopefully,
lead to national neuroscience services run by local HR.
26
Ain Shams Teleneurology unit has been giving online modular neurology training
webinars for the last 7 months (e.g. CT interpretation, Headache, How to setup a
comprehensive stroke service). In the last 2 months; we have started doing online
telemedicine consults as well. Trainees are from Egypt, Ghana,Somalia, and Ethiopia.
The capacity of our e-learning/telemedicine solution is 250 sites per webinar. We are
currently using 6.
As per the concept note, the plan is to mix these online services with onsite training and
service development.
What we suggest is the following;
Setup a modular neurology curriculum
Form a network of interested universities/hospitals. If we connect 50 hospitals
with 2 trainees per hospital. We will be working with 100 trainees.
Trainees can choose to have one or more modules.
They can be neurology trainees, or simply a family practitioner who sees a lot of
headache cases in his practice and wants to give them a better service. The
reason for that is the difficulties with getting a neurology position, and also the
paucity of trained physicians in general.
Each module will have an academic part, case based learning followed by
service implementation with telemedicine support.
The online training is mixed with onsite training short courses that can be done
between the participating sites and Ain Shams University.
Lectures can be given by Egyptian, African and international speakers.
The support of the participating institution is of paramount importance.
For example; the family practitioner who finished the headache module will have
the support of his institution to start a headache clinic. After 50 mentored cases
via telemedicine, he can then be trusted to ask for online consults for chronic
migraines or cases with less common diagnosis. In a years time, this will lead to
a visible new, and hopefully successful service that will help at least 100 patients
per year. During this year, he will spend a few weeks in an established headache
service and will have the chance to attend an onsite headache course and get to
share his experiences.
This real life achievement will eventually lead to someone else asking; what
about my epilepsy cases?
27
This program will rapidly improve awareness to the need of neurology specialists
and will also quickly leverage the services provided to neurology patients. I would
assume that a minimum of 50% of the trainees will choose to continue their
neurology training.
I think this will be the biggest number ever of physicians that got neurology
training in their countries or in Africa.
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