Global South
Open neuroscience infrastructure is heavily concentrated in Western Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan. Researchers and populations in Africa, Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and the Middle East are largely absent from global neuroimaging repositories, which overwhelmingly represent populations of European ancestry. This absence limits the generalisability of neuroscience findings, skews the development of clinical tools and AI models, and perpetuates inequity in who benefits from open brain science. This perspective documents the initiatives actively working to change that, and serves as a starting point for expanding vault coverage as infrastructure matures.
The representation gap
A 2020 analysis found that people of African descent account for fewer than 5 percent of participants in brain disorder research on average, despite Africa comprising over 12 percent of the global population. Major open repositories, including the Human Connectome Project, UK Biobank, and others, draw almost entirely from European-ancestry cohorts. Similar gaps exist for Latin American, South Asian, and Southeast Asian populations. The consequence is that decades of open neuroscience data are of limited utility for research addressing conditions as they manifest outside the Global North.
Data localisation policies in several African countries, variable research ethics infrastructure, limited access to neuroimaging equipment, and the absence of computing resources compound the challenge of generating and sharing FAIR data from these regions.
Active initiatives
BRIDGE (Brain Research International Data Governance & Exchange) is the most structurally significant initiative addressing this gap. Funded by the Wellcome Trust and hosted by INCF, BRIDGE is building an International Data Governance Framework (IDGF) to help investigators, institutions, and repositories navigate the varying legal and ethical landscapes that obstruct cross-border data sharing. Its partners span Brazil, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK, and the US, and it has run regional workshops in Latin America (IDOR Rio de Janeiro, 2024) and Africa (Marrakesh 2025, Johannesburg 2025).
ABDN (African Brain Data Network) is a network of over 300 researchers and stakeholders across more than 20 African countries, working to make African brain imaging data FAIR and to build the technical capacity needed to generate, share, and reuse it. Supported by the Kavli Foundation, ABDN runs the African Brain Data Science Academy, a two-week training programme in neuroimaging data collection and FAIR data practices. ABDN works in collaboration with BRIDGE and the Neuroscience Society of Nigeria.
Neuromatch is an online platform for computational neuroscience and data science training, explicitly designed to reach researchers in underserved regions with limited access to traditional summer schools and infrastructure. It is connected to INCF and has provided training to thousands of participants across Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia. IBRO (International Brain Research Organization), founded in 1961, coordinates over 100 neuroscience societies globally and runs training grants, fellowships, and capacity-building programmes with an explicit focus on researchers in lower-income countries. IBRO co-funds the African Brain Data Science Academy with the Kavli Foundation. The ALBA Network promotes equity and inclusion across the global neuroscience community, with working groups and advocacy addressing structural barriers that disproportionately affect scientists from underrepresented regions, including the Global South.
International frameworks with Global South relevance
The UNESCO Open Science Recommendation (2021) is the primary global normative framework for open science and is the most explicit in calling for equitable access and capacity building across the Global South. RDA (Research Data Alliance) runs working groups on FAIR data in low- and middle-income country contexts. GA4GH has explicit equity commitments in its genomics data sharing frameworks. FAIR Principles themselves, while technically neutral, are being reinterpreted in African and Latin American contexts to account for data sovereignty, localisation, and community benefit.
Coverage notes
This perspective is intentionally broad and under-populated. It documents the current state of play rather than a mature ecosystem. Latin America has active neuroscience communities and emerging data infrastructure — notably at IDOR (Instituto D’Or de Pesquisa e Ensino, Brazil), which is a BRIDGE partner and a significant open neuroscience actor — but no dedicated vault nodes yet. South and Southeast Asia, including India, Indonesia, and China’s growing open neuroscience output, are similarly not yet covered. Contributions and corrections from researchers in these regions are especially welcome.