The ANU is proposing to disestablish the Eccles Institute of Neuroscience – we don’t agree with this and neither should you.

The ANU College of Health and Medicine Managing Change Proposal recently put forward the disestablishment of the Eccles Institute of Neuroscience. This institute is built on the legacy of Sir John Eccles, who won the ANU’s first Nobel Prize, and has an international reputation of excellence in brain science. Brain-related diseases cost Australia in excess of $74bn per annum. Sadly, the cost of brain disorders is growing, and soon will outweigh that of heart disease, cancer and respiratory disease combined. It is therefore imperative that research on the brain is supported and maintained at the ANU.

Disestablishment of the Eccles Institute of Neuroscience at the ANU would not only diminish ANU’s reputation and abolish the Eccles legacy, but it would have a direct impact on the development of treatments for neurological disorders and thereby on our everyday lives. The plan would also lead to the demise of neuroscience teaching and learning at the ANU. Undergraduate and postgraduate students will no longer have the opportunity to study neuroscience, and current students will be heavily impacted.

We need your support to reverse this decision and maintain neuroscience at the ANU.