Paul Verschure

Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya

Engineering Sciences

Dr. Paul Verschure leads the Synthetic Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems Laboratory, hosted by the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalunya. Paul has received his MA and Ph.D. in Psychology and pursued his research at different leading institutes in Europe and the USA and manages a team of over 30 researchers and technicians with whom he has published over 350 articles in leading journals and conferences in a range of disciplines. Paul is regularly invited as a speaker at relevant scientific conferences and international policy events, a consultant for the European Commission, board member of three journals and reviews for a number of relevant journals and conferences. Paul is founder/CEO of Eodyne Systems S.L, which is commercializing neurorehabilitation, education and cultural heritage technologies, founder/Chairman of the Future Memory Foundation and founder/Chairman of the Convergent Science Network Foundation. 


Research interests

Paul's scientific goal is to generate a unified theory of mind and brain relying on synthetic methods and delivering science grounded technologies that support and advance the human condition.  Activities of my lab SPECS are organized along seven dimensions: 1) Architectures of mind and brain; 2) Computational neuroscience; 3) Robotics; 4) Neuroinformatics; 5) Human neuro-physiology; 6) Neurorehabilitation; 7) Education. The unique synergy this renders between basic and applied science has generated new insights into the organization of mind and brain and provided solutions in neurorehabilitation, education and cultural heritage used by thousands of people. 

Selected publications

- Moulin-Frier C, ... & Verschure P 2018, 'DAC-h3: A proactive robot cognitive architecture to acquire and express knowledge about the world and the self', IEEE Tr. Cogn. Dev. Sys., 10(4), 1005-22.  

- Pacheco D & Verschure PF, 2018, 'Long-term spatial clustering in free recall', Memory26(6), 798-806.

- Puigbò JY, Maffei G, Herreros I, Ceresa M, Ballester MG & Verschure PFMJ 2018, 'Cholinergic Behavior State-Dependent Mechanisms of Neocortical Gain Control: a Neurocomputational Study', Molecular neurobiology55(1), 249-257.

- Fischer T, ... & Verschure PF 2018, 'iCub-HRI: A Software Framework for Complex Human-Robot Interaction Scenarios on the iCub Humanoid Robot', Frontiers in Robotics and AI5,  Article 22.

- Arsiwalla XD & Verschure P 2018, 'Measuring the complexity of consciousness', Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12 (424).

- Prescott T, Lepora N & Verschure P 2018, 'Living machines: A handbook of research in biomimetics and biohybrid systems', Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.


Selected research activities

Co-chair of annual Living Machines conference (7 editions, http://livingmachinesconference.eu),

Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology summer school (10 editions, https://specs.ibecbarcelona.eu/bcbt2018/), hosts of BCBT podcast (80 episodes) accompanying the 100+ video lectures (csnetwork.eu).

Co-Chair 26th Int. Conf. Artif. Neur. Netw.

Board member of  St Rafaele Cognitive Neuroscience Graduate School (Milano), Advanced Biosystems, Cognitive Systems Research, Connection Science, Nature Science Reports, Frontiers in Bioengineering.

Member Faculty of 1000.

Coordinator international Sapiens5.0 network promoting a new science and technology for the sustainable development goals of the UN (sapiens5.net).