News

As you read this newsletter, hopefully you will see how NIF is making a difference. Whether it is industrial processes, understanding human neural responses, or visualising brain structure and function in laboratory or native animals, imaging is an important tool. Our Facility and Informatics Fellows are key to the success of NIF, and are working to build engagement with our international partners in Global BioImaging (Kirk Feindel visits Belguim), and improve the processes within our facilities (Gary Perkins wins an award). These are activities that turn a hardware facility into an infrastructure capability.

As we close the year, it is worth reviewing where we want to go, how we went, and what we should be thinking about for 2018. Anyone in the research community is aware that there has been a marked emphasis on impact. Research needs new discovery, as the driver of future development, but we also need to look for ways to reach out to the community and find out how that discovery can make a difference, be it economic, better health, environmental protection, or better quality of life; the NIF team is looking at what is needed to drive impact.

In this newsletter, you will read about our engagement through national conferences, which offers a path for outreach; helping us to plan. But, we need to do more, we need to better engage with you. We have changed our structure, with the implementation of thematic teams, in which academic and industry users will play a critical role. We want you, our researchers, to join us, to plan the future. If you have any ideas, we would love to hear from you.

The NIF team wishes all our readers and their families a great Christmas holiday season, a time of reflection, relaxation and renewal. We look forward to 2018, and the opportunity to work with you and to achieve your goals.

CEO – Graham Galloway