NRSN - Norwegian Research School of Neuroscience

The Norwegian Research School in Neuroscience (NRSN) was launched during spring 2013. Initially, the initiative brought together the expertise of neuroscientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, the University of Oslo, the University of Bergen and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. In 2018, the Norwegian Arctic University was included as partner. NRSN aimed to provide an important training opportunity for the next generation of Norwegian-trained neuroscientists by combining the specific expertise of the participating institutions. Neuroscience research has seen a tremendous integration of traditional with new disciplines, resulting in new insights on how dispersed brain regions interact to produce behavior. This modern integrative neuroscience is on the brink of discovering the mechanisms for complex mental functions. With the description of mechanisms for neural computation in an increasing number of experimental model systems, 21st century neuroscientists will revolutionize our notion of the fundamental operational principles of brain circuits. This new level of mechanistic insight is essential for understanding and preventing a wide range of common neurological and psychiatric disorders. NRSN was based on the notion that none of the participating institutions alone had the expertise to provide optimal training, but that their combined, complementary expertise provided the PhD students with an excellent state-of-the-art and pioneering education. To fulfil this ambition, NRSN coordinated and organized PhD courses through its partners and offered travel and accommodation grants to member students. In addition, NRSN organized events like the annual conference by and for PhD students to stimulate national and international interdisciplinary networking and exchange. During the funding period, NRSN developed, organized, or provided support for 27 university-approved PhD courses, 8 highly specialized summer schools, and 35 seminars and workshops in scientific writing, career development and other generic academic skills. At the core of the NRSN activities was the annual PhD conference, organized exclusively by PhD students, for PhD students. The aim of the conference was to provide the students with an arena to meet other students in neuroscience from all over Norway and practice their conference and presentation skills. Over the years a total of 577 students from all over the country attended the conference. This strongly nurtured the growth of a ?national neuroscience community?, facilitating interactive research across the centers. NRSN offered many students support to attend courses, summer schools and short research stays abroad. Students were selected based on competitive applications that were evaluated by a committee consisting of three NRSN faculty board members. In total, NRSN has supported 89 students to attend internationally renowned courses, thus furthering their doctoral training. In June 2021 NRSN organized a national neuroscience symposium to highlight the breadth of the neuroscience community. The symposium included plenary lectures and symposia with speakers from all over Norway covering topics ranging from neural networks to epigenetics, genomics, the healthy and diseased human brain, and computational modelling. Due to Covid-19, the event was organized as a hybrid event with local hubs with live lectures streamed online and to the other hubs. The national symposium was a great success allowing students and scientists to meet, socialize and present their research to the national community. In addition to the scientific program, the event included a panel discussion on the future of Norwegian PhD education. Speakers and panelists included Aase Marthe Horrigmo (Statssekretær, Kunnskapsdepartementet, Guus Smit (director ONWAR - Graduate School Neurosciences Amsterdam Rotterdam), Francois Feron (coordinator of CIVIS: A European Civic University), Åse Gornitzka (UHR Forskning), rectors from UiT, NTNU, UIB and UiO, and Menno Witter (NRSN director). This panel discussion was the last component of the Board?s initiative to develop a model to continue the research school and its course portfolio when funding from NFR ends. This ambition was formulated during the final years of NRSN and culminated in a coordinated intensive surge of activities. This extensive work has, with the support of the national neuroscience community, led to a proposed ?pay per student model? which is planned to start in 2022 In conclusion, NRSN has succeeded in creating a national neuroscience community. The school developed a diverse course portfolio by utilizing the complementary research expertise from all partner universities, allowing neuroscience students in Norway to obtain a broad and diverse PhD education. We are happy that even without external support, individual scientists and their department leaderships are in favor of the continuation of NRSN.

The aim of NRSN was to organize and secure a broad, diverse, and nationally coordinated neuroscience training program for PhD students that will be internationally competitive. Several surveys have been conducted and NRSN organized a digital meeting with a very large number of the national stakeholders attending, from individual scientists at all career levels, to PIs, group leaders, and department heads, leading to one conclusion: NRSN not only contributed substantially to the important responsibility of our national universities to educate PhD students, but has moreover generated a unanimous recognition of the relevance of a strong Norwegian community in neuroscience. NRSN facilitated the building of new interactions between groups at different universities, often resulting from interactions between individual students employed in different groups who met during courses and even more so during the annual PhD conference. NRSN thus achieved its formulated aim.

The Norwegian Research School in Neuroscience (NRSN) is founded on the shared conviction of the researchers in the main neuroscience centers in Norway that the education of the coming generation of neuroscientists requires a broad multidisciplinary traini ng program. None of the centers has the complete expertise to provide such training, but the complementarity of the excellent research expertise present in the centers provide all that is required to provide our students with such a challenging and comple te education. NRSN aims to organize, facilitate, coordinate, develop, and secure a broad, diverse, and nationally coordinated neuroscience training program for PhD students in Norway. The program will be embedded in the international networks of the partn ers and will be registered as part of international educational programs in Neuroscience. Courses, currently existing at the partners? institutions and new courses will take up to 2 weeks from start to finish, allowing all students to participate. NSRN wi ll organize an annual national meeting for PhD students to stimulate cross-disciplinary exchange. An annual summerschool will be organized with a focus on one specific theme, bringing in internationally esteemed professionals as lectures/demonstrators. NR SN will also facilitate training in communication skills through writing and presentation courses, based on the principle of tutored peer-counseling.