The BRAIN Center is a Phase II National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded industry-university collaborative research center (IUCRC). It is a partnership between the University of Houston,  Arizona State University, Miguel Hernandez University in Spain, Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico, and three prospective national sites, University Georgia Tech, and University of Maryland Baltimore County, and West Virginial University,  the BRAIN’s Industry Advisory Board (IAB) comprised of national and international companies, start-ups, hospitals, and foundations.

The Center’s innovation ecosystem includes partnerships with institutions from Texas Medical Center (TMC) to conduct clinical trials; a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the FDA to collaborate in the study of human interaction with medical device technologies, real-world data collection using context-aware mobile brain-body imaging (MoBI) technologies for larger, smarter, and distributed clinical trials, and assaying the population variability of EEG biomarkers with potential diagnostic utility.

The BRAIN Center is also actively engaged in the study of ethical, legal, and regulatory aspects of neurotechnologies, the development of standards for emergent neurotechnologies such as closed loop brain-machine interfaces, electronic tattoos for health monitoring, and convergent research at the intersection of science, engineering, and the humanities.

BRAIN’s workforce development program includes an NSF REU Site: Neurotechnologies to Help the Body Move, Heal, and Feel Again, and graduate courses focusing on the development of new tools, standards, and regulatory approaches to assess the safety, reliability, efficacy, quality, and performance of biomedical products/devices.