The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has established a Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders (the Forum). Forums are designed to provide its members with a venue for exchanging information and presenting individual views, and allow a structured opportunity for dialogue and discussion while scrutinizing critical and possibly contentious scientific and policy issues. Representatives from government, industry, academia, and other interested parties are expected to serve on the Forum, which will convene three times a year to confer on subject areas of mutual interest and concern. At its meetings, the Forum will identify and discuss emerging scientific and policy issues related to research in the neurosciences. The Forum will sponsor workshops (or symposia) as an additional mechanism for informing forum meetings and discussions. The Forum may also commission papers. Forum discussions or workshops may lead to proposals for specific studies by units of The National Academies resulting in institutional reports. Such studies, if undertaken, will be conducted independently from the Forum and in accordance with all institutional policies and procedures governing such study activities.
Recognizing the need to bring together the diverse set of stakeholders involved in the neurosciences, in 2006 the National Academies established the Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders (the Forum) to engage leaders from private sector sponsors of basic biomedical and clinical research, federal agencies sponsoring and regulating basic biological, biomedical, and clinical research, private foundations, the academic community, and other consumers. Through its regular meetings and public workshops, the Forum provides a venue where its members, other leaders from the neurosciences and related disciplines (e.g. social sciences, behavioral health, engineering, computer science, and mathematics), and members of the public can have candid discussions about issues of mutual interest. The Forum convenes two or three times a year to confer on subject areas of mutual interest and concern and organizes and hosts two to four public workshops each year. The Forum has undertaken a broad set of initiatives. These activities included roundtable meetings on U.S. and European animal-research regulations and their impact on neuroscience research, grand challenges in neurosciences, animal models for CNS research, and models to facilitate first in human research.
