Understanding how the brain works is a major scientific challenge which will benefit medicine, biology and computer science. It requires knowledge of how information is encoded, accessed, analysed, archived and decoded by networks of neurons. Globally, over 100,000 neuroscientists are working on this problem. However, the data that forms the basis for their work is rarely shared even though it is difficult and expensive to produce. One of the main reasons for this is that vast amounts of data are produced in a variety of formats; this is then locally described and curated. One consequence is a shortage of analysis techniques that can be applied across neuronal systems. Further, there is only a limited amount of interaction between research centres with complementary expertise.