“Report card for the Kavli Institute”: This is undoubtedly Excellent.

The Research Council of Norway (RCN) is given the task by the Ministry of Education
and Research to perform subject-specific evaluations. According to the plan for these
evaluations the RCN carried during 2010 and 2011 out a comprehensive evaluation of Norwegian research within biology, medicine and health in Norwegian universities,
hospitals, relevant university colleges and relevant research institutes.

Here is their report:

Scientific quality

The Centre for the Biology of Memory (CBM) has developed into one of the world’s
leading arenas for experimental and theoretical studies of memory in brain networks.
Since its inauguration in 2007, CBM has been able to provide some of the most groundbreaking insights so far into how spatial location and spatial memory are computed in the brain and, more generally, how the brain generates its own neural patterns.

The most remarkable contribution was perhaps the discovery of grid cells in the entorhinal cortex (in 2005), which immediately pointed to the entorhinal cortex as a hub for the brain
network that makes us find our way through the environment.

The discovery led to a complete revision of established views of how the brain calculates position and how the results of these computations are used by memory networks in the hippocampus. The results will ultimately benefit the development of tools for diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, which commonly begins in just the brain area that contains the grid cells.

The present publication record is indeed excellent with great international impact.

Grade: This is undoubtedly Excellent.