Network Hubs :: Mental Health Mission Funding 2025

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MRC-NIHR-Trials Methodology Research Partnership

Working Group Project Funding to Support Projects for Mental Health Mission: Innovative Clinical Trials Hub 2024/2025

The MRC-NIHR TMRP has been awarded funding for trials methodology research to support the development of an Innovative Clinical Trials Hub for Mental Health.

The Hub aims to transform the pace and scale of evaluation of interventions in common and severe mental health (MH) disorders by supporting:

i) Faster, streamlined clinical trials informed by patient priorities;

ii) Recruitment at scale from pre-consented, well-phenotyped, continually renewed, representative UK-wide cohorts in primary and secondary care;

iii) Efficient investigation of mechanism and efficacy for new interventions;

iv) Trials methodology research specifically related to mental health; and

v) Industry partners at all scales.

The team working at the hub will work on a range of different types of trials for Mental Health, and different models for innovation, e.g. trials in primary care, mood disorder clinics, early psychosis clinics, trials with digitised elements, platform trials for digital therapeutics.

MRC-NIHR Trials Methodology Research Partnership (TMRP) is working with the teams from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London and Office for Life Sciences Mental Health Mission (OLS-MHM):

Richard Emsley, Academic Director of King’s Clinical Trials Unit, IoPPN, KCL
Mitul Mehta, Director of C-FIT, IoPPN, KCL
Husseini Manji, OLS Mental Health Mission co-Chair
Kathryn Abel, OLS Mental Health Mission co-Chair
Vaibhav Naranyan, OLS Mental Health Mission Chief Industry Officer

The hub, through the MRC-NIHR Trials Methodology Research Partnership funded several small project awards for TMRP members to undertake trials methodology research specifically related to mental health.

Lead	Research Organisation	Project Title and Report
Dr Brennan Kahan	University College London (UCL)	Guidance in the use of estimands in mental health trials.
Dr Sharon McCann	University of Aberdeen	Understanding influences on recruitment and retention in mental health trials: a rapid qualitative evidence synthesis and evidence mapping to identify solutions.
Dr Tim Morris	University College London (UCL)	Feasibility, opportunities and barriers to the use of n-of-1 designs to evaluate mental health interventions.
Dr Haiyan Zheng	University of Bath	Unlocking the potential of precision mental health – a pilot investigation focused on schizophrenia.
Dr Charlotte Hall	University of Nottingham	UNITE: UNderstanding Industrys Thoughts and Experiences of research partnerships: an exploratory investigation.
Dr Alexandra Wright-Hughes	University of Leeds	Initial steps in the development of a core outcome set (COS) for the treatment and prevention of post-stroke psychological problems.
Dr Brennan Kahan	University College London (UCL)	Increasing efficiency in mental health trials by developing statistical methods to overcome challenges in crossover designs.
Dr Brennan Kahan	University College London (UCL)	An evaluation of informative cluster size in mental health trials to determine whether standard statistical methods are robust and reliable.
Professor Carrol Gamble	University of Liverpool	Carbon footprinting mental health trials.
Professor Carrol Gamble	University of Liverpool	Challenges of Early-Phase Research: Design Considerations in trials of medicinal products for depression.
Dr Kim May Lee	King's College London and Newcastle University	Adaptive designs for mental health trials on complex interventions.
Dr Kim May Lee	King's College London	Inclusive designs for superiority studies in mental health.
Dr Nicholas Turner	University of Bristol	Learning curve effects in randomised controlled trials of mental health therapy interventions.
Professor Paula Williamson	University of Liverpool	A review of core outcome sets for mental health conditions.