IBL has pioneered a new paradigm in systems neuroscience: a central core of scientific engineers that  enables distributed teams to perform otherwise impossible large-scale projects. We are proud of having developed an effective approach for collaborative neuroscience research, and we want to give other researchers the chance to take advantage of our resources and to enable routine collaborative science at a brain-wide scale. 

Principal investigators and project leaders around the world are welcome to apply.

It is ideal to already have funding secured, however we will also consider projects that are currently in the process of acquiring funding. Applications of this sort would be strengthened by preliminary data or analysis that would help us assess the scope and extent of the support that is needed.

We will consider projects at a variety of stages, from those that have not yet started, are currently developing their infrastructure, to established teams with more data or compute needs than they know how to manage. 

Because our tools were originally developed for the IBL, they are well-suited to multi-team collaborations, but we recognize that some individual labs have data needs that would likewise benefit from these tools. We are open to considering applications from both individual labs and larger groups.

Yes.

Yes.

Due to generous funding from the Simons Foundation, if your project is selected we will provide our collaborative efforts and support at no cost to you. We also provide some storage and compute resources if your data is in our repository. However, we can provide free support for only a limited number of projects. In order to expand the number of projects we can support, we are also interested in partnering with teams who would like to collaborate on funding proposals to support new projects.

IBL partners will work in accordance with the IBL governance, data sharing, authorship, and publication policies. We expect the partners to establish an effective working relationship with the IBL core, governed by transparency and mutual respect. The partners will work together with the IBL engineers to develop realistic timelines and milestones for their projects, which balance the capacity of the IBL staff with the needs of all ongoing projects. The partners will be responsible for the public release of their data, with the full technical support of the IBL staff. The partners will also contribute to writing progress reports for the funding agency, highlighting the scientific progress enabled by the IBL core. We envision that all IBL partners will strive to foster a vibrant research community transcending the boundaries of individual projects, where researchers openly discuss, give feedback, and share ideas.

Before any project begins, we work with you to create an agreement about what specific work will be done, how we will divide it among our team members and yours, and what we expect the timelines to be. We have a quarterly process to adjust resources as needed. For time sensitive needs, we have a troubleshooting channel on slack that is monitored during business hours, and aim to provide support as quickly as possible. 

Yes, we ask every project lead to register their project on a common repository. This repository is viewable by all in the IBL, but not externally.

Authorship of outputs from collaboration with IBL will be governed by the IBL publication policy. This policy covers just about anything citable, including papers, abstracts, conference papers, datasets, and other materials. The policy specifies that anyone who has participated in the generation of a paper or other output should be included as an author. We use the CRediT Taxonomy as the basis for contributions statements for each author to make it clear why each person is included on the author list. We also include IBL as an author on any citable work that arises from our collaboration.  

All work co-developed with the core will be shared openly in accordance with IBL policies. IBL will take the lead on publicizing the work in the community, but partners will be strongly encouraged to participate in outreach work for resources they have participated in developing.

Yes, data is shared with other members of IBL even prior to its publication. However, if a member of the collaboration wants to use the data, they need to request permission and establish an agreement on acknowledgement. If only a portion of a larger dataset is used in collaboration with IBL (eg. for algorithm development), then only that portion will need to be shared.