Music is experienced, performed and shared by people in all societies, ages and social groups. Recently, neuroscientific interest in music has increased dramatically as modern brain imaging techniques have provided researchers the means to investigate the living human brain at work.
The Danish National Research Foundation’s Center for Music in the Brain (MIB) is an interdisciplinary research center at Aarhus University and the Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg, Denmark aiming to address the dual questions of how music is processed in the brain and how this can inform our understanding of fundamental principles behind brain functioning in general.
With a strong foundation in music practice and theory at the highest level and a focus on the clinical application of music, MIB combines neuroscientific, musicological and psychological research in music perception, action, emotion and learning with the potential to test prominent theories of brain function and to influence the way we play, teach, use and listen to music.
In 2006, Peter Vuust formed the research group "Music in the Brain" in collaboration with Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Aarhus University Hospital and Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg (RAMA). The aim was to facilitate contacts between different scientific approaches to studying music and the brain, and to introduce this scientific field to a broader audience within the Danish music community.
Being the first research group of its kind in Northern Europe, the MIB group quickly positioned itself nationally and internationally with active research collaborations with university departments and research institutions nationally and abroad.
To strengthen the research, an application to The Danish National Research Foundation (Danmarks Grundforskningsfond) was submitted in 2014 and in October the same year, MIB was awarded a DKK 52 million center of excellence grant from the Danish National Research Fondation to create The Danish National Research Foundations's Centre for Music in the Brain.
The centre opened 1 June 2015 and is a collaboration between Aarhus University and The Royal Academy of Music.
Center for Music in the Brain is the first research centre of its kind in Europe.
Center for Music in the Brain is a Center of Excellence funded by the Danish National Research Foundation.
A Center of Excellence is expected to engage in pondering some of the large unsolved questions and address the challenges that intrigue it the most. The philosophy is that when excellent people work with problems they are most passionate about, groundbreaking results will follow. In other words, the foundation welcomes curiosity-driven research or what might be described as exceptional researchers’ “dream projects.”
The center leader must be an outstanding researcher and visionary leader who has not only shown excellence in own research, but also proven to be a visionary leader able to form a creative and dynamic research community.
A center of excellence is not only an international training site, it also sets the standard for how exceptional research should be conducted. The center is expected to provide optimal environments for training the next generation of first-rate scientists.
A total of 100 Centers of Excellence have been established so far. 47 center are currently active.
Nine of these centers are located on Aarhus University.
Danish National Research Foundation: http://dg.dk/
(Source: Danish National Research Foundation)
