Interdisciplinary Center for Neurosciences (IZN)Structure

The IZN's current 63 research groups are spread across several locations and several institutions and faculties in the Heidelberg/Mannheim area. They are coordinated by central management and joint teaching and training structures. For more than two decades, the IZN has thus provided a blueprint for forward-looking research and training structures without faculty or institutional barriers. In the field of research, the new research group initiative on excitotoxicity in particular forms a bridge between basic science and clinical working groups, as well as between regional and leading national/international academic institutions. The IZN International Graduate School and the IZN's involvement in bachelor and master degree programs in the life sciences play a central role in the promotion of young scientists. The highly popular Neuroscienc Major of the Master Study Program in Molecular Biosciences, which is supported by the IZN, is offering a “Neuroscience Summer School” for the first time this year in cooperation with the Sorbonne Université Paris and the Paris Brain Institute. Master students, doctoral students, and postdocs will have the opportunity to discuss their data, experimental ideas, and theoretical concepts with renowned experts. Our Neuroscience Major will also undergo further internationalization via the Erasmus+ program, initially through an association with the international study program Neurasmus - A European Master in Neuroscience (Canada, France, Germany). The structured IZN International Graduate Program, which also contributes to the Neuroscience Summer School, offers its program for IZN doctoral students not only at the Faculty of Biosciences (Dr.rer.nat.), but is also accredited at the Medical Faculty Heidelberg (Dr.sc.hum.). The planned accreditation within the School of Translational Medicine of the Medical Faculty Mannheim (Dr.sc.hum.) will further strengthen the cross-faculty structure of the IZN and its services.

The interdisciplinary composition of the IZN Board of Directors is continuously adapted to the specialist focus areas on site through regular elections and the replacement of departing colleagues and ensures the desired balance between continuity and science-driven dynamism with ten elected representatives, a director, and two vice-directors. Meetings at the very well-attended annual retreats ensure transparency and a lean, extremely cost-efficient structure. IZN has no funded and equipped administrative or scientific infrastructure. However, IZN investigators and in particular the representatives of the Board of Directors are prominently involved in neuroscience appointments at the respective faculties.

The IZN brings together neuroscientists from within several institutions in the Heidelberg/Mannheim area.