The BrainScaleS Project aims at understanding function and interaction in brain information processing. Spatial scales range from individual neurons over larger neuron populations to entire functional brain areas. Temporal scales range from milliseconds, relevant for event based plasticity mechanisms, to hours or days relevant for learning and development. Research is carried out on the basis of in-vivo biological experimentation and computational analysis. Neurobiological data from the early perceptual visual and somatosensory systems will be combined with data from specifically targeted higher cortical areas. Functional databases as well as novel project-specific experimental tools and protocols will be developed and used. New theoretical concepts and methods will be developed for understanding the computational role of the complex multi-scale dynamics of neural systems in-vivo. Innovative in-vivo experiments will be carried out to guide this analytical understanding. Through numerical simulations on petaflop supercomputers and direct simulation on a fundamentally different neuromorphic non-von Neumann hardware architecture the project will extract generic theoretical principles to enable an artificial synthesis of cortical-like cognitive skills. The hardware architecture combines neuromorphic microscopic physical model circuits with numerically calculated mesoscopic and macroscopic functional units. Combined with a virtual environment providing sensory, decision-making and motor interfaces it enables the possibility to map and study multi-scale neural architectures.