TOSI — Tanenbaum Open Science Institute
Overview
TOSI is the open science institute at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital, McGill University), established in 2016 with a $20M gift from the Larry and Judy Tanenbaum family. It was the first institute in the world to formally adopt Open Science as a core institutional value. TOSI’s mission is to establish open science best practices within The Neuro and to build a growing alliance of Canadian neuroscience research institutes committed to open science principles.
Key Activities
- The Open Science Principles framework was developed at TOSI and exported to partner institutes.
- The Open Science Support and Partnership Framework guides other institutes through adoption.
- The C-BIG Repository is an open multimodal biobank covering brain imaging, clinical, genetic, and cell data, running on LORIS.
- Brainstorm is an open-source MEG/EEG analysis software developed at The Neuro.
- Open Science Grants provide annual internal funding for open science projects at The Neuro.
- The Neuro Open Science Prizes award CAD $100K annually to international contributors to open science in neuroscience.
- Open Science Office Hours provide peer support and training for researchers and trainees.
Canadian Open Science Alliance (TOSI Partners)
Institutes that have adopted TOSI-approved Open Science Principles include Hotchkiss Brain Institute (University of Calgary, 2020), Douglas Research Centre at McGill (2021), Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at UBC (2023), CAMH Toronto (2023), Western Institute for Neuroscience (2024), CRIUGM Montreal (2024), Simon Fraser University (2024), Sagol School of Neuroscience (2025, first international partner), and Baycrest Academy for Research and Education (2025).