In two articles by Wolf Singer, published in TINS in 1994 and 1997, brief analyses were presented of the problems faced by the European neuroscience community in its attempt to provide a cohesive response to meet the challenge of the proclamation of the 'Decade of the Brain'. One of the most-important decisions was to promote a forum for European neuroscience that, among other activities, would hold bi-annual meetings, alternating with meetings of partner European neuroscience societies in the intervening year. The first fruit of this was the enormously successful meeting held in Berlin in June 1998. The next meeting, the FENS millennium meeting, will be held in Brighton, UK (24-28 June 2000).