Organization

The INCF consists of a central Secretariat, National Nodes in each of the participating countries, and a Governing Board with representatives from each participant.

The Secretariat is the central facility of the INCF, located at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The Secretariat is responsible for the execution of scientific and administrative activities and for the implementation of the INCF Work Program. The Director of the Secretariat, who serves as the INCF Executive Director, and the staff of the Secretariat provide administrative support as well as appropriate expertise in the different areas of neuroinformatics, such as databasing and information sciences and computational neurosciences. The costs of the office accommodations and much of the infrastructure are covered by the Secretariat Host institution. The financial contributions from the member countries make up the INCF Central Fund. This fund is not subject to overhead and is thus used directly for salaries and operating expenses, as well as other spending under the Secretariat budget, approved by the INCF Governing board.

The National Nodes are facilities, networks, or other mechanisms, funded by national resources. The nodes are established for the purpose of coordinating and facilitating activities within a country and providing an interface to the Secretariat. They furthermore participate in the formulation and implementation of the INCF Work Program.

The Governing Board of the INCF is the means by which the participating countries make collective decisions on all matters relating to the INCF, which are to be put into effect by the INCF Secretariat. The board consists of one voting representative from each member country. It elects a Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson, whose terms are three years. The Executive Director of the INCF serves as the Executive Secretary to the board.