EBRAINS users days - Agenda

We recommend to attend "in person" in Heidelberg. For people, who can not make it: The talks during the introduction day (6 October) will also be streamed (free of charge).

Venue: at the EINC in Heidelberg, Germany

Street address: Im Neuenheimer Feld 225a, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
Please see the EINC page for tram and parking info.

Registration

To register for the users day :

• if you are an "EBRAINS 2.0 and friends project member", please use the registration form for project members
• if you have an EBRAINS account (recommended) please register here with EBRAINS account
• else (i.e. if you do not (yet) have an EBRAINS account), please register here

(To request a free-of-charge EBRAINS users account please use https://ebrains.eu/register)

The registration fee of 25 Euro / day includes the lunch at Heidelberg University mensa, coffee breaks and cookies.

Posters

12 poster boards in the coffee break area are available (contact Björn to reserve one) to highlight tools or services and serve as conversation-starters:

• The EBRAINS Software Distribution (ESD)
• BrainScaleS neuromorphic compute system
• EBRAINS tools-for-teaching

((or linking to the agenda also this ebrains.eu URL can be used.) .

An introduction tour through the whole EBRAINS Research Infrastructure.

Introduction + panel discussion with audience feedback

TBC

Introduction to the basics of the EBRAINS Research Infrastructure:

• EBRAINS account
• The Collaboratory - collaboration environment for research teams
  • wiki - a place for easy documention
  • drive - a place to store files
• Lab - An execution environment for python notebooks for no-installation access to EBRAINS tools - an introduction with examples from different project areas
• Handbook
• Forms?

Suggestions:

• the EBRAINS Software Distribution (ESD): getting ready for scaling up seamlessly
• EBRAINS workflows: combining tools
• ...

An introduction on how to prepare for curation of datasets, models or software for inclusion in the EBRAINS RI knowledge graph and data sharing services

Introduction of the ways the EBRAINS team can help creating a sound proposal for applying for High Performance Compute (HPC) resources for research cases, where local compute power is insufficient.

The [https://ebrains.eu/esd](EBRAINS software distribution) provides a software environment (container) for using lots of EBRAINS tools in the same setup - from usage on an individual system up to HPC environments. This session demonstrates the process (download, use, scale up).

Workflows combining different tools potentially running at different sites (e.g. for accessing local data sets and leverage compute power).

There slots, 2h each, of parallel offers for hands-on tutorials.

For most of the EBRAINS tools used in the tutorials an EBRAINS account will be needed. Best get your account ahead of time. If that is not possible you can also get a guest account on the spot to be able to participate in the hands-on tool usage sessions.

Medical Informatics Platform (MIP)

In this tutorial, participants will explore the Medical Informatics Platform (MIP), a federated research environment that enables secure discovery and analysis of distributed health data across institutions. Using the Public MIP instance, participants will gain an overview of the platform's architecture, learn about the principles of federated data sharing and analysis, and discover how researchers can access and work with available datasets through the MIP ecosystem. After a short introduction to the platform and its federated setup, participants will be guided through the data catalogue, the newly developed user interface, and a prepared analysis workflow. This hands-on session will provide practical insights into how the platform supports collaborative medical research while maintaining data sovereignty and privacy.

• Each participant will have the opportunity to follow the prepared tutorial and explore the platform's capabilities directly. Participants will use the Public MIP instance and require an EBRAINS account (available free of charge at https://ebrains.eu/register) to access the platform and the tutorial datasets.
• The tutorial will be conducted entirely through the MIP web interface, and participants only need a web browser on their own laptop.
  
  

Siibra tools

Description pending

The Virtual Brain (TVB) - introduction

The TVB session will be showing the basing building block of TVB, how to set up and run a whole-brain simulation, explained through use-cases of modeling epileptic seizures, virtual resection and stimulation. (See here for additional information)

SpiNNaker

In this tutorial, participants will learn how to access and use SpiNNaker, one of the world's largest neuromorphic computing platforms. After an initial introduction to the platform and the PyNN language on SpiNNaker, the participants will then be able to access the EBRAINS Jupyter Lab using a web browser on a laptop (a mobile phone is not recommended for this) and use this to follow exercises allowing them to build up their knowledge of running PyNN scripts on SpiNNaker. The workshop leader will be on hand throughout the session to help with any problems, and to answer any additional questions about the system and its use.

• Participants can use their EBRAINS account (available at https://ebrains.eu/register free of charge) or can use a guest account during the tutorial. With an own account the participants can continue using the neuromorphic compute systems also after the end of the tutorial.
  
  

Knowledge Graph for data consumers

Description pending

(Details to be provided)

More information about the tutorials in this slot:

Introduction to simulating neural networks using Arbor

Arbor is a library for simulating biophysically detailed neuron models on modern hardware. It comes with a friendly Python interface hiding its blazingly fast C++ core; scaling from laptops to at least 4000 GPUs. In this tutorial, we will show you the basics of designing detailed cell models, how to run them using Arbor, and how to grow them into larger networks. We will demonstrate how to create data drive models using the Allen Brain Atlas as an example. Arbor is free and open-source software, developed in the Human Brain Project and EBRAINS.

BrainScaleS

In this tutorial, participants have the chance to explore BrainScaleS-2, one of the world’s most advanced analog platforms for neuromorphic computing. For the tutorial, participants will use a web browser on their own laptop for remote access to BrainScaleS-2 systems via the EBRAINS Research Infrastructure. After a short introduction to neuromorphic computing and spiking neural networks, they will learn how to express and run experiments on the neuromorphic platform through either the (machine-learning targeting) PyTorch- or the (neuroscience targeting) PyNN-based software interfaces. This will allow them to gain insights into the unique properties and challenges of analog computing and to exploit the versatility of the system by exploring user-defined learning rules. Each participant will have the opportunity to follow a prepared tutorial or branch-off and implement their own project on the systems.

• Participants can use their EBRAINS account (available at https://ebrains.eu/register free of charge) or can use a guest account during the tutorial. With an own account the participants can continue using the neuromorphic compute systems also after the end of the tutorial.
• For the tutorial we will use the non persistent quick start here on EBRAINS.
  
  

Human Intracerebral EEG Platform (HIP) powered by CHORUS

In this tutorial, participants will explore CHORUS, a trusted research environment that provides the tools and infrastructure needed to support secure, collaborative, and reproducible data-driven research. Designed to accommodate a wide range of scientific use cases, CHORUS enables researchers to manage and analyse diverse data types, including medical images and time series data within a unified collaborative workspace.

Using the Human Intracerebral EEG Platform (HIP) as a neuroscience-focused use case, participants will gain an overview of the platform’s capabilities and learn how to create workspaces, set up collaborative projects, and manage research activities across teams. They will be introduced to the CHORUS App Store, which provides access to a growing portfolio of analytical tools and services, and will learn how these can be integrated into their research workflows. Through a hands-on exercise with tutorial datasets, participants will create a project environment, organize resources, and take the first steps towards preparing and executing a simple analysis. This session will provide practical insights into how CHORUS supports collaborative research while ensuring secure and efficient data management.

• Participants will access the platform through a web browser on their own laptop.
• Participants will require an EBRAINS account (available free of charge at https://ebrains.eu/register) to access the platform and the tutorial datasets.
  
  

Parallel tutorial sessions:

Infos:

• Directly after the EBRAINS users days the education department of the EBRAINS 2.0 project organizes a students day. Please find the agenda of the students day here
• If you want to experience another hands-on tutorial: The "Virtual users days" happen from 12-14 October 2026