In recent years, significant investments have been made by the European Commission and European member states to create a pan-European e-infrastructure supporting multiple research communities. As a result, a European e-infrastructure ecosystem is currently taking shape, with communication networks, distributed grids and HPC facilities providing European researchers from all fields with state-of-the-art instruments and services that support the deployment of new research facilities on a pan-European level. However, the accelerated proliferation of data – newly available from powerful new scientific instruments, simulations and digitization of library resources –, has created a new impetus for increasing efforts and investments in order to tackle the specific challenges of data management, and to ensure a coherent approach to research data access and preservation. EUDAT aims to address these challenges and exploit new opportunities using its vision of a Collaborative Data Infrastructure.

The goal of re3data.org is to create a global registry of research data repositories. The registry covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines. re3data.org presents repositories for the permanent storage and access of data sets to researchers, funding bodies, publishers and scholarly institutions. In the course of this mission re3data.org aims to promote a culture of sharing, increased access and better visibility of research data.

Understanding the human brain is one of the greatest challenges facing 21st century science. If we can rise to the challenge, we can gain profound insights into what makes us human, develop new treatments for brain diseases and build revolutionary new computing technologies. Modern computing technology has brought these goals within sight. ICT is ready to give us a completely new understanding of the brain and its diseases; understanding the brain will lead inevitably to radical innovation in computing.