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The Neuroscience Network Basel (NNB) is a center of competence of the University of Basel. The credo of the network is: „Explore function - Understand dysfunction – Improve diagnosis and treatment“.

History
The Neuroscience Network Basel was founded at the University of Basel, Switzerland in 1996 by representatives of the faculty of natural sciences, the faculty of medicine and the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research. Its initial name was the “Basel Neuroscience Program”. The objective was to create a platform, which allows coordination and support of research and teaching of neurosciences at the University of Basel and the affiliated institute and organizational units. A further objective was increasing public awareness and understanding of goals and activities in brain research. The three founders, Markus Rüegg, Hans-Rudolf Brenner and Denis Monard headed the network for the following twelve years during which around 30 group leaders with research activities in neurosciences joined the network. In spring 2008 three more academic partners joined the network: the faculty of Psychology, the Neuroscience Network of the upper Rhine valley NEUREX and the Department of Biosystems Science, D-BSSE. The network was renamed Neuroscience Network Basel (NNB). In fall 2008 the University of Basel acknowledged the Neuroscience Network as a center of competence of the University of Basel. The activities of the former Basel Neuroscience Program were incorporated in the new structure of the NNB.

Organization
The NNB consists of a steering committee, a coordination bureau and a general assembly. The network operates under the administrative supervision of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, but it is also embedded within the Medical Faculty and the Faculty of Psychology. The NNB is subject to approval and controlling by the Rektorat of the University of Basel.

Steering committee
The steering committee is headed by a chairperson and includes a representative from each of the participating institutions or organizations: the Biozentrum, the Friedrich Miescher Institute, the Department of Biomedicine, the Departement of Neurology of the University Hospital, the Psychiatric Clinics of the University Hospital, the Faculty of Psychology, the Department of Biosystems and Engineering and the trinational network Neurex. NNB members of the above mentioned institutions select a person as representative in the steering committee. The chairperson of the steering committee is selected by the steering committee. The steering committee decides on the acceptance of new members. Group leaders who wish to become a member send their application to the coordination bureau.

Coordination office
The coordination bureau is responsible for internal communication and coordination within the participating institutes. It is also responsible for external communication and representation of the NNB, including public relations with the press, patient organizations, schools and museums and other neuroscience networks. It is the point of contact for student requests (master students as well as graduate students) and responsible for academic reporting.

General assembly
All major decisions are made by the general assembly. It takes place at least once per year in January or February. All members of the NNB participate to the general assembly and have a voting right. The general assembly acknowledges the constitution of the steering committee.

Strategy and Goals
The overall strategic goal of the NNB is to foster and promote interdisciplinary and translational neuroscience research. The NNB encourages integration of basic and clinical neuroscience research and promotes an orientation towards translational research, which strives to take key research findings from laboratory bench to hospital bedside. NNB’s credo is to: “explore function-understand dysfunction-improve diagnosis and treatment”.

Students
In view of the role of the university as a center of learning, the NNB strives to integrate the most recent research findings and methods into student education by early exposure of students to active, research-oriented neuroscience teaching with hands-on practical courses beginning at the bachelor level. The network organizes weekly seminars held by invited renowned speakers. This allows an informal exchange of ideas of students and members with international group leaders. The network Neurex offers summer schools and thematical courses for students, which allow deepening of theoretical or practical knowledge and skills of various neuroscientific aspects.

Members
The NNB fosters collaboration of members with the neuroscience programs at the universities in the tri-regional upper Rhine area and with neuroscience groups at other Swiss Universities and Federal Institutes. Given the unique concentration of applied neuroscience research in Basel, the NNB promotes and nurtures the cooperation of university groups with applied research labs in the international pharmaceutical corporations in Basel as well as with the small and medium size enterprises in the area of northwest Switzerland. At the annual “Bench to Bedside symposium” the neuroscientific community of Basel meets for a one-day exchange of ideas and news on specific topic from basic and clinical research with the aim to encourage the bench to bedside dialogue and collaboration

Public
The NNB will further develop the communication and scientific dialogue both within the university and between university researchers and the general public in order to promote and explain the importance of neuroscience research for treatment of mental health disorders and neurological as well as neurodegenerative diseases. Every year in March neuroscientists explain their work to the general public during a week-long Brain Awareness Week. Some events are carried out in collaboration with other cultural institutions, thus allowing for other points of view on brain research and the brain. At special events members of the NNB explain the brain and its function to schoolchildren. Teachers who wish to visit labs are welcome to do so during organized lab days called “school and researchers meet”

Projects
The NNB has been a partner in various projects, for example the 550 years jubilee of the University of Basel and in the Brain Bus project (15) from 2010 to 2013. At the 10-year anniversary of the Brain Awareness week in Switzerland, in 2007, the network, then called Basel Neuroscience Program, participated in the nationwide special events on “Neurosciences and Society”. The network has also fostered the annual meeting of the Swiss Society of Neuroscience twice, in 2011 and in 2006. It was a partner at the Biovalley Life Sciences Week in 2008.

Swiss Society for Neuroscience
The Swiss Society for Neuroscience (SSN) is a non-profit organization (16). The purpose of the Society is to advance the understanding of the nervous system and its diseases, by bringing together scientists and clinicians of various backgrounds, and by facilitating the integration of research. The SSN promotes the exchange between basic and clinical research, as well as with industrial research, and promotes education in the basic and clinical neurosciences. The SSN endorses exchange and collaboration at the international level, promotes public support for neurosciences and participates in the annual Brain Awareness Week campaign. The SSN has launched the Young SSN (ySSN) (17), a standing committee of the SSN with the mission to create a network of young neuroscientists across Switzerland