EGI and Neurodesk Partner to Facilitate Reproducible Neuroimaging Research

EGI is pleased to announce a new collaboration with Neurodesk, a data analytics computing platform enabling researchers to conduct reproducible analysis of neuroimaging data. This partnership will empower scientists to seamlessly access the tools and resources they need for robust and reliable research.

Neuroimaging research often involves complex analysis pipelines that rely on specific software versions and operating systems. This creates challenges in reproducibility, as running the same pipeline on a different computer can lead to unexpected results.

Neurodesk addresses this issue by providing a containerised data analysis environment. This environment ensures that researchers can access the exact software versions and tools they need, regardless of their computing setup. This allows for:

• Reproducible Research: Findings can be easily replicated by other researchers, promoting trust and accelerating scientific progress.
• Simplified Collaboration: Researchers can share their analysis pipelines and data with collaborators without worrying about compatibility issues.
• Increased Efficiency: Scientists can focus on their research questions rather than troubleshooting software dependencies.

EGI is supporting Neurodesk by:

• Migrating Neuroimaging Data Repositories: Essential neuroimaging data has been migrated to EGI’s Stratum-1 secure and reliable infrastructure at NIKHEF. Another replica of the datasets is also available on AWS in Frankfurt.
• Allocating Resources: Computing resources have been dedicated to hosting the Neurodesk Play server within the EGI Federated cloud.

This agreement with Neurodesk is a Service Level Agreement represented by the University of Queensland (Australia) and is valid from June 1, 2024, to May 31, 2025. EGI’s member, CESNET-MCC (CZ), provides the following resources for hosting the Neurodesk Play server:

• 78 vCPU cores
• 252 GB of RAM
• 1 Floating IP
• 2 TB of block storage

EGI is committed to supporting innovative solutions like Neurodesk that empower researchers to conduct groundbreaking research. This collaboration paves the way for a future of more robust and reproducible neuroimaging science in Europe.