2021: BNA REVIEW OF THE YEAR!

3rd Jan 2022

2021: wow, you’ve gone fast! It's another year that's been hard for many of us, beginning with a lockdown, included embracing (yes, another) Zoom meeting, yet also celebrating a wealth of webinars and new opportunities.

Our best moments included a brilliant online International Festival of Neuroscience, the exciting launch of a new Scholars programme, along with some vital, wide-reaching policy work (e.g. our Parliamentary event in October). But most of all, they included you, our members, working together to make this a fantastic, inclusive neuroscience community despite the on-going global challenges.

So, please join us as we take a moment to reflect back on some of the British Neuroscience Association's (BNA) most important achievements this year:

JANUARY: The year began with the launch of our exciting new BNA Scholars programme, as well as our BNA Credibility Prize, recognising reliable, replicable, and reproducible neuroscience research. We were also delighted to endorse the new ALBA Declaration on Equity and Inclusion.

FEBRUARY: We responded to a parliamentary inquiry on diversity and inclusion, exploring how organisations within science, technology, engineering and maths are helping to create a diverse and inclusive working environment. 

MARCH: This month, we celebrated our Year of Ageing for Brain Awareness Week, with some tips for a healthy ageing brain. We also awarded the winners of our inaugural BNA Credibility Prizes, and were delighted to announce our inaugural cohort of Scholars. Plus, we celebrated International Women’s Day with some insights and inspiration from two of our Council and Committee members.

APRIL: A big month this one! We ran our first online International BNA2021 Festival of Neuroscience on 12-15 April, with inspirational world-class plenaries, symposia and 250+ speakers from over 20 countries!  We were so delighted to be able to bring our neuroscience community together, to make valuable global connections, share insights, and hear the very latest international neuroscience research. 

We were also very proud to announce Tara Spires-Jones as our new President-Elect!

MAY:  Spring, and we announced our fabulous BNA2021 Festival of Neuroscience poster prize winners! 

JUNE: Summer arrived next, with us announcing our Founding Supporters for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in neuroscience initiatives, in particular the BNA Scholars Programme. We also held our AGM for 2021.

JULY: We were proud to announce our endorsement of the first Scottish Brain Health & Dementia Research Strategy, a targeted approach to boost care and prevention research for dementia in Scotland. 

AUGUST: Our open access journal, Brain and Neuroscience Advances, very proudly launched Ratlas, a new - and freely available - resource that will increase the accuracy and efficiency of experiments and also help to reduce animal numbers used for neuroscience research across the country.

SEPTEMBER: Autumn, and we responded to a Parliamentary inquiry on reproducibility in research, highlighting that a wide variety of stakeholders need to take action to strengthen the overall system, support research careers, and boost credibility. We were also delighted to announce our BNA-Brain Carer Grants with support from the Guarantors of Brain.to help cover event costs for those with caring responsibilities.

OCTOBER: We proudly hosted an online event for BNA members, 'Brain Gain: How world-leading UK neuroscience research can meet tomorrow’s societal challenges’, along with the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee (PSC). Here, we discussed how neuroscience can help tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Our journal, Brain and Neuroscience Advances, also joined a newly established initiative, the Peer Community In Registered Reports (PCIRR). This is aimed at supporting how Registered Reports are reviewed and published, and giving more flexibility and control to authors when publishing their work.

Plus, we were delighted to open applications for our second cohort of BNA scholars for underrepresented ethnic groups in neuroscience. 

NOVEMBER: This month, in partnership with The Psychiatry Consortium, we ran the first in our webinar series 'Building bridges along the psychiatric drug discovery pipeline' looking at challenges and opportunities for collaborative partnerships with academia and industry 

DECEMBER: And the year ended with a bang! With our online Festive Symposium, ‘Ding-dong merrily on AI’, that also launched 2022 as the Year of Artificial Intelligence (AI), welcoming an exciting line-up of speakers and wide-ranging talks about neuroscience, the brain and the future of AI. We were also delighted to award this year's winners of the BNA prizes, including Professor Joanna Wardlaw, the BrainBus team, and students, Alberto Lazari and Sioned Williams. Cogratulations!

Here's to a fabulous 2022, where we look forward to everything that the year will bring for our fantastic neuroscience community - including our online Members' Meeting on 27-28 April. Members can register FREE here!