The neurosciences promise to diagnose and treat neurological disorders with unknown precision and success. However, not all humans are included equally in this research agenda. Studies show alarming racial and ethnic bias in neuroscience due to technical and social exclusion mechanisms, leading to tools that are not optimized for or compatible with people who share certain characteristics. While guidelines are being developed for study conceptualization and sample composition, they are largely written from a US view with its specific history, current population make-up and demographic tools to represent population diversity. Guidance is still lacking for researchers in Europe and other global locations, with different histories and presents of racial and ethnic diversity and discrimination.

This project addresses this challenge and asks what equitable neuroscience research means in Europe and what social and technological change is needed to achieve it. Through a multimethod approach that employs bibliometric, qualitative, co-creative and ethnographic analysis, the project will explore multiple questions around the current understanding and representation of racial and ethnic diversity in study populations, how these understandings may change in different scientific settings, what this means for a translation from neuroscience to neurotechnology, the role of intersectionality and the kinds of technological, social and institutional changes that are needed to render neuroscience in Europe more equitable.

These efforts clearly support TransforM’s focus areas on justice and equality, with a goal of creating frameworks that can be used practically going forward in the Munich and European ecosystem.