Read the original media release here. (in German)
Thanks to the support of the German Manfred-Stärk-Stiftung for brain research, the University of Bern is able to establish an Endowed Professorship for Neuromorphic Systems. It is endowed with CHF 3.6 million and strengthens the successful research in theoretical neuroscience at the University of Bern.
Neuromorphic systems and neuromorphic computing form an interdisciplinary field between neuroscience, artificial intelligence and engineering. Their aim is to develop circuits and hardware (chips) that can replicate the self-organising and self-regulating nature of the brain. Neuromorphic chips are suitable, among other things, as medical implants for damaged human tissue such as the retina. Neuromorphic systems can also help to optimise the movements of robots or improve their pattern recognition through an artificial, self-learning system. Further future applications lie wherever data has to be processed in real time, for example in autonomous driving.
Continuing Bern’s research in the Human Brain Project #
“Research in theoretical neuroscience at the University of Bern is internationally renowned and broadly based,” says Christian Leumann, Rector of the University of Bern. For example, there is a professorship for “Machine Learning for Medicine”, which is based at the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Medicine, as well as several research groups in the Faculty of Medicine that work in the field of neuromorphic hardware and were involved in the Human Brain Project. The aim of this international project was to bring together knowledge about the human brain and to reproduce it using computer models and simulations. “The Endowed Professorship for Neuromorphic Systems now makes it possible to significantly strengthen and anchor the field of neuromorphic computing in research and teaching at the University of Bern,” says Leumann.
Consolidating existing collaboration #
With the support of the UniBE Foundation, the new Endowed Professorship for Neuromorphic Systems is being established as a tenure-track assistant professorship and is initially set up for 12 years. Over this period, it will be co-funded by the Manfred-Stärk-Stiftung with a total of CHF 3.6 million and will be based at the Institute of Physiology. “I am extremely pleased that the establishment of the endowed professorship now fulfils a long-cherished wish of the founder Manfred Stärk, who will soon be 89,” says Claudia Lehnherr, Managing Director of the UniBE Foundation. The German Manfred-Stärk-Stiftung aims to promote basic research in neuroscience with the goal of gaining a better understanding of the complex functions of the human brain. It has already been supporting Bern’s research in theoretical neuroscience for ten years.
“It is very important to us to continue to ensure the successful and interdisciplinary research in theoretical neuroscience at the University of Bern, particularly in the Human Brain Project,” says the founder Manfred Stärk. The endowed professorship is to set various research priorities: analytical methods and dynamical systems, modelling of neural activity and synaptic plasticity, biologically inspired methods for machine learning, as well as theory, models and applications for fast and energy-efficient neuromorphic systems.
Strengthening the link between medicine and the natural sciences #
The endowed professorship is intended to foster not only collaboration within the Faculty of Medicine, but also between the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Science. “Within the Faculty of Medicine, we are strengthening the link between theoretical neuroscience and, in particular, the research platform NeuroTec, the Department of Neurology at Inselspital and the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine CAIM,” explains Claudio Bassetti, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Bern. “Together with the Faculty of Science, we want to promote collaboration between medicine, physics and computer science,” Bassetti continues.
The endowed professorship will be advertised nationally and internationally. The appointment is planned for spring 2025.
