Banking (on) the Brain

The Banking (On) The Brain Project (Project) is a multi-disciplinary study that will integrate the learning of - and generate new knowledge relevant to - a range of arts and humanities (A&H) fields. Through close association with scientific researchers, it will determine whether and how discourses emerging from popular culture and humanities disciplines (such as anthropology, history, law, philosophy, and so on) are taken up by, or encoded in, law through its regulation of biomedicine. The Project will investigate key issues relating to the interaction of culture, law, regulation, and science, using brain banking as a case study. It will explore several questions vital to the idea of 'science in culture', namely:

1. What is the nature, value and limits of brain banking and its regulation?
2. What roles do imagination, engagement, and cultural concepts play in supporting and informing (or thwarting) the brain banking endeavour?
3. What might the regulation of brain banking - as an instance of an emerging medically-valued scientific practice - tell us about the culture-law-science nexus and the interactions between these domains?

The answers to these questions will uncover new understandings about the regulation and practice of brain-banking, and will serve as a platform for the design of a longer and larger interdisciplinary project relevant to AHRC themes.

By engaging with a diverse range of A&H and scientific partners (through a series of cross-cutting literature reviews and interdisciplinary workshops), the Project will permit these experts to explore working together to create new epistemologies for collaborative enquiry concerning the cultural and scientific importance attributed to the human brain. In addition, it will show clearly how A&H disciplines can be applied to enduring problems in scientific discovery and its regulation, and it will evidence how science, law and other A&H traditions learn from each other. A central aim of the research will be to create impact within the brain banking community, and we will strive to ensure a project legacy through knowledge-exchange activities that will be ongoing long after the funding for the study is over.

Both the second Project Workshop and the ultimate Public Symposium will provide key fora for reflections on the Project's impacts to date, and the identification of pathways that can be followed long after the research has been concluded.

POLICY COMMUNITY
We will use a range of communication approaches throughout (and beyond) the Project so as to maximise the potential impacts of the research. We will communicate our research through our existing contacts in the central and devolved UK parliaments and international parliaments, government bodies and departments. Our research will be communicated to our contacts both informally and through formal research briefings. Project findings will be publicised in the Innogen and Script newsletters, and the open access online journal, SCRIPTed, which are read by a wide range of groups that include key policymakers and policy organisations. Throughout the course of the research we will seek to identify and target key policy stakeholders with interests and investments in brain banking organisation and procedures per se. Importantly, the impact of this research will not be limited to the UK; we will disseminate findings and plans for follow-on research to existing and extensive policy and academic contacts around the world, including those in Asia and Latin America, where interest in biobanking, including brain banking, is rising. In this way, impact will be achieved well beyond the confines of the domestic and European setting, thereby adding value to the project investment.

SCIENTISTS AND HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
Through previous research, we have established links with a number of leading scientists and biomedical organisations. In addition to the mechanisms listed above, we expect that one of the key ways in which scientists and health professionals interested in the themes of our research will encounter the research is through the internet. Accordingly, we will build a Project website linked to sites of the Mason Institute, the ESRC Genomics Network, the AHRC Script Centre, the ESRC Innogen Centre, the Centre for Population Health Sciences, and the MRC Brain Bank Network. All of these sites (with the exception of the Mason Institute site, which is just now being built) already represent important conduits for information to both external and internal audiences. Our final report - where we outline our reflections, key findings and plans to proceed - will be published on that dedicated web-page as well as in SCRIPTed. One of the Project Co-Investigators, Prof. James Ironside, is Director of the MRC Brain Bank Network; he will be an important ambassador for the Project within the brain banking community. Again, the research will also be disseminated to known scientific contacts beyond the UK and Europe.

PATIENT GROUPS & PUBLICS
The Project Team has established links with a range of patient and other voluntary organisations, including British Neuropathological Society, Dementia Scotland, Epilepsy Scotland, and patient groups represented by the MRC Brain Bank Network. We intend to create impact within these communities in similar ways to those described above, as well as through more informal emails and meetings. In particular, we will seek opportunities to present our research in accessible ways at patient group meetings. We will also seek to develop new contacts with organisations such as the Alzheimer's Society, and others which have created or are creating disease-specific brain banks. Capitalising on our existing contacts, we will reach public interest groups (Comment on Reproductive Ethics and the Genetic Alliance), students (Edinburgh International Science Festival, inclusion of findings into taught courses), interested members of the public (press releases, Cafe Scientifique, British Science Association, etc.).