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Building partnerships to advance knowledge
The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro) is an international leader in neurological research and clinical care and is a key player in the larger neuroscience network across McGill. Maintaining a position of scientific leadership in neuroscience, as well as other fields of biomedical research, represents a major task for all top-notch institutions. Neuroscientists all over the world are facing increasing challenges due to the growing complexity of the questions being investigated, escalating costs of research and intense competition for limited research funds. McGill and The Neuro have been addressing this situation with several initiatives to promote multidisciplinary and collaborative interactions at local, national and international levels. A new Integrated Program in Neuroscience, the largest of its kind in North America, was officially launched less than one year ago to strengthen our ability to train future generations of world-caliber neuroscientists. Through this interdepartmental program, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows working in research labs at The Neuro and at other McGill centres, departments and affiliates, benefit from being part of a collegial and integrated network that exposes them to a broad range of approaches and activities in hundreds of neuroscience laboratories across campus.
Establishing inter-university interactions is another important step allowing investigators to be involved in large national and international neuroscience partnerships that enable studies not otherwise possible in single laboratories or smaller scale groups. As an example, the International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS), a collaborative initiative of McGill and the University of Montreal, is a successful local partnership which allows scientists to study how the structure and function of our nervous system influences the way we perceive and learn music. In addition, The Neuro and McGill pursue international research partnerships. Last year, McGill unveiled a formal partnership in neuroscience with Oxford University to facilitate joint research projects and the exchange of graduate students and visiting professors. More recently, Neuro faculty with funding from The Neuro established a partnership with Imperial College London, a science-based institution consistently rated among the world’s best universities. This partnership will provide new support for academic interaction, capitalizing on shared research interests between The Neuro and Imperial College that include brain development, brain imaging, cognitive neuroscience, neurodegeneration and repair, neuroinflammatory disorders, neuromuscular diseases and systems neuroscience.
These initiatives provide our scientists with additional opportunities to strengthen and expand the scope of their research programs, and to make major advances in our understanding of human neurological disorders. The partnerships facilitate the continuum from basic discoveries through clinical treatment, keeping The Neuro at the forefront of building knowledge about the nervous system and meeting the challenge of providing the best clinical care.
