EHDS: Meeting the Challenges of Responsible Data Governance
Data is a cornerstone for innovation and better health care. Responsible data governance is key to the public’s trust in science and the sustainability of research. The European Health Data Space (EHDS) is the European Commission’s response to the pressing need for a trustworthy health data infrastructure that reaches across member states. Needless to say,…
Increasingly big data & the pressing need for international data governance of neuroscience
Understanding the brain requires great effort and the scale of neuroscience research projects is increasing to scale. This means crossing borders in big international research initiatives, and as a result being subject to national and international laws, regulations and policies in both data collection and transfer. While neuroscience data transcends borders, data governance typically stays…
Neuroimages, artificial intelligence & re-identification of research subjects
Taking images of the brain using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI for short, also captures the face. For a long time, techniques that remove facial features from neuroimages have allowed for open sharing of anonymised neuroimages. But new developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning have made it possible to re-create the removed facial features…
PhD opportunities in ethics of research infrastructures, AI & data
Would you like to join the HBP Ethics Support team to be a research assistant and do your PhD? We currently have two positions open. Application deadline is 9 January and you can read the advertisement and apply for these positions here. Successful applicants will join the interdisciplinary and international HBP team at the Centre…
Q&A with Ethics Rapporteurs: High Performance Analytics and Computing
What ethical and societal questions scientists, engineers and developers in the Human Brain Project (HBP) encounter in their work? How do they deal with them? To shed some light on these questions we start Q&A series with Ethics Rapporteurs. First to answer our questions is Meredith Peyser (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany) from the Sub-Project 7 High…
BREXIT and Data Protection in the Human Brain Project
Simisola Akintoye In the aftermath of the United Kingdom’s (UK) intention to withdraw from the European Union (EU) pursuant to Article 50 of the EU Treaty, all EU primary and secondary law will cease to apply in the UK from 31 October 2019, 00:00 (CET) (‘The Withdrawal Date’). In view of the considerable uncertainties around…
New Interim Data Protection Officer in the Human Brain Project
On 1st June 2019, Dr. Simisola Akintoye became the new interim Human Brain Project’s (HBP) Data Protection Officer (DPO). She replaces the previous HBP DPO Kevin McGillivray who has left the HBP to take up a new job. It is expected that Simisola Akintoye will be an interim DPO pending the appointment of a new…
Explainability and Counterfactuals: Algorithmic Decisions and the Individual
Tonii Leach How do AI algorithms make decisions? Why might we need to understand this, and to what extent do we need to understand this? How can we conceptualise ‘explainable’ AI? And when we ask for an explanation, what is it that we really want to know? On the 27th of February Dr Brent Mittelstadt…
Data Protection Officer in the Human Brain Project: Q&A with Kevin McGillivray
Why does the Human Brain Project (HBP) need a Data Protection Officer and what are the main challenges for this role? Our Questions and Answers series with Ethics Support task leaders continues with Data Protection Officer Kevin McGillivray. Q1: What are the aims of Data Protection Officer (DPO)? A DPO is a professional in the…
Ethics-Related Data Governance in the Human Brain Project: Q&A with Tyr Fothergill
What is the role of ethics in data governance in the Human Brain Project (HBP)? And how can awareness of data governance be raised within and outside the HBP? Our Question & Answer series with Ethics Support task leaders continues with Dr Tyr Fothergill, task leader for Ethics-Related Data Governance. Q1: What are the aims…