Before the 10th annual Computational Neuroscience meeting 2001 in Asilomar, CA, Jim Bower announced that he would resign as the organizer of the CNS meeting after 2001. Under the leadership of the existing program committee as well as the organizing committee, a number of scientists present at the Asilomar meeting formed an informal "CNS futures committee" with the goal to discuss how the continuation of the annual meetings could be assured. The group held daily discussion meetings, open tall attendees of the meeting. These discussions were continued via a list server after the Asilomar meeting.

During the 2002 CNS meeting in Chicago, open discussion sessions were held daily. All those present at the meeting were invited to attend. The discussions were focused on deciding on a structure to organize the meeting and handle finances, obtain grants etc. During these discussions, the following points were decided unanimously:

(1) A foundation or organization will be established as a formal body to organize the annual CNS Meetings. ; (2) The foundation will not have members; (3) The foundation will be governed by a board of directors headed by an executive committee.

On July 24th, 2002, a group of meeting attendees met to appoint the first Executive Committee. The group unanimously appointed the following executive committee:

President: Christiane Linster

Vice-President: Todd Troyer

Secretary: Erik DeSchutter

Treasurer: Linda Larson-Prior

Chair of the Program Committee: Erik DeSchutter

Chair of the Grants Committee: Phil Ulinski

Chair of the local organization Committee: Albert Compte