EAGER From Genomics to Brain Science: What Makes Researchers Tick in Transdisciplinary Initiatives

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The transdisciplinary formation between biology and computing fostered the transformative achievement of decoding the human genome. Decoding the functionality of the human brain is similarly posed to usher in a new era of biomedical and technological advancements. The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative is a federally funded umbrella program aimed to streamline research efforts in brain science in the United States. The Human Brain Project (HBP) is a competitive initiative funded by the European Union, which shares the same goal with BRAIN but pursues different policies, organizational strategies and incentive structures. The result is different multilevel processes integrating people, ideas, scientific cultures, and institutions in the same transdisciplinary challenge. Examined together, these two projects offer a base for comparisons of the impact of science and innovation policy interactions on collaborations among scientists. The project build a dataset that funding and publication sources, with faculty databases to capture the interactions among scholars fromvarious disciplines and ecosystems. Statistical and network tools identify patterns of collaboration and their evolution as a result of the BRAIN and HBP policy intervention. Qualitative feedback in the form of interviews from key players identified via the quantitative methods, will support nuanced interpretations of the results and guide extensions and policy recommendations.