Summits & Symposia

The RCP will create yearly gatherings for senior scientists to gather and exchange ideas about how to achieve the mission goals. These gatherings, Big Ideas Summits, will have a general theme but be a free-form open idea forum where the top experts across multiple fields can share ideas without the need to follow any agenda or protocol. No idea is too crazy.

Attendees will share their input and expertise to assist the RCP in deciding how to allocate funding in support of its mission to improve the lives of those with cerebellar disorder in as short a time as possible. Additionally, attendees will share the latest research ongoing at their universities as well as ideas that are currently developing that align with RCP’s focus and interest areas. The result of these discussions has the potential to provide opportunities for their Universities to receive research grants to further RCP’s goals.

Big Idea Summits are different from other research conferences — there are NO speeches, no presentations of papers. The summits are a free exchange of ideas between the best scientists from a wide cross-section of fields that touch the Cerebellum including cerebellar scientists, imaging experts, data scientists, AI leaders, geneticists, etc all with the goal of creating new ideas in support of the mission to improve the lives of those with Cerebellar disorder in as short as time as possible.

Each of these groups will be given a minimum of $4 million to $5 million each in support of a different facet in support of the RCP’s mission — one team has to build the rocket, one team has to build the lunar module, one team has to the build the computers that will map the telemetry. It is contemplated that as many as six consortiums will be chosen to receive such funding over the next several years and they will be expected to work together as a sort of virtual institute in support of the RCP mission.

Funding will also be provided for a yearly Post-Doc/Graduate version of the Summits – to allow a place for those younger but exceptional thought leaders to gather and exchange ideas to help push the mission goal forward. – Candidates for future funding will be identified primarily from attendees at these conferences. Summit attendees will be asked to form collaborations with other attendees across specialties as well as reach out to different labs with the expertise needed to get the job done.