About

The Institute of Mental Health is a unique partnership between Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Nottingham.

We bring together healthcare staff and academics to lead mental health research designed to improve diagnosis, treatment, and care.

Founded in 2006, a unique catalyst for new ideas, clinical expertise, and research excellence was created to bring research knowledge and evidence into the NHS.

Whilst public awareness about mental health is growing, widespread stigma has prevented many people from accessing the right support and treatment. Our collaborative approach blends university and NHS knowledge. Together, we educate, influence, and put new discoveries and findings into practice.

The Institute has built a reputation for research excellence. We work with a wide range of disciplines and expertise, with a growing assembly of mental health researchers. Fostering links both nationally and internationally, the Institute continues to grow, as we apply our research to benefit patients, the public, clinical and healthcare staff.

Our five-year strategy document for 2022-2027, maps out the Institute of Mental Health’s vision for the future: what our ambitions are, where we wish to have influence and make improvements, and how we can deliver impactful research that can change lives.

We have spent time listening to the people we work with, our staff, partners, volunteers and public contributors, to find out what the Institute means to them. We asked what people felt were our strengths and weaknesses; were there new areas of mental health research we should be focusing on; are we creating the positive impact that we strive for through our research? We used the answers to these questions, as well as feedback and reflections from the consultations, to help us create a strategy that everyone we work with now (and in the future) can feel part of and help make our ideas and ambitions a reality.

You can explore our ambitions for the future through the following sections on this page:

Who we are and where we’ve been

Our mission, vision and values

Objectives for the future

What lies ahead?

You can also download a PDF version of the strategy (1MB)

    
Who we are and where we've been

Centres of Excellence

We launched our first Centre of Excellence - the Centre for Health and Justice - in 2011, focusing on bringing together practice, research, and policy in justice-related healthcare.

The opening of a new purpose-built building for the Institute in 2012 was swiftly followed by the launch of more Centres of Excellence. The Centre for ADHD and Neurodevelopmental Disorders Across the Lifespan (CANDAL) has led to Nottingham becoming a pioneering centre for ADHD research. We are also home to the NIHR MindTech MedTech Co-operative, a national centre for research into technology in healthcare.

In the following years we have launched our Centre for Dementia, Centre for Social Futures, Centre for Translational Neuroscience (formerly Neuroimaging), Centre for Mood Disorders, and the Centre for Mental Health and Human Rights. Not only has this increased the range of disciplines linked to the Institute, but it has also raised the profile and reputation of our research. We have a wide variety of excellent research projects, prestigious major research funding awards, and numerous academic papers.

Innovation and expertise

Idea incubation and research innovation has become an integral part of the Institute’s work, with small projects benefiting from the expertise of our two founding partners. Combining academic and healthcare knowledge allows new research ideas to be tested, and new collaborative working partnerships to be formed. These “innovation networks” have scoped out new research possibilities in the field of trauma, the arts, young people’s mental health, learning disabilities and forensic mental health. One of our most successful networks is the Nottingham People’s Choir, which championed the positive benefits of singing for wellbeing.

The Institute hosts international and national conferences, meetings, and courses reflecting a broad range of research themes - from mental health, disability, and law to internationally renowned mental health recovery conferences. MindTech’s annual digital technology and mental health symposium attracts a nationwide audience from industry, healthcare, and the public. Our in-house training events for healthcare professionals includes forensic mental health and old age psychiatry.

A new phase

In 2015, the Institute moved into a new phase under the leadership of Professor Martin Orrell. He led the Institute through its 10^th anniversary celebrations and onto renewed success in major grant awards and research breakthroughs.

The sustainability of the Institute is based on funding received through research grants, events, support services and evaluation projects. Grant applications are written collaboratively with support and input from our grant support staff. We encourage projects that include different disciplines, services, and backgrounds.

The National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) is our primary source of external research grants, with additional funding coming from the UK Research and Innovation councils (UKRI), research charities such as Wellcome, and international awards including the European Commission.

During our short history, we have grown in both stature and reputation. We currently support 30+ professors and associate professors and over 100 PhD students, developing new talent and ideas in mental health research. Our successful approach has been recognised with NIHR Senior Investigators awards for six of our leading clinical researchers. These awards are given to the most prominent and significant researchers funded by the NIHR, who are outstanding leaders of patient and people-based research within the country’s NHS research community.

We also recognise the need to nurture new research talent. Our early career researchers can take advantage of mental health PhD studentships, hands-on events, dedicated workspaces, junior research roles, and mentoring, enabling them to flourish on their chosen research path. We welcome students from a range of backgrounds, recognising the value their lived experiences bring to their research.

Public involvement

We are committed to involving public and patient contributors through all our research activities. Public contributors have become involved with the Institute through both formal and informal opportunities. We welcome and include anyone who wants to be involved in mental health research into our projects. We believe our research excels when it includes a wide range of opinions and experiences.

In 2020 we appointed a dedicated Public Involvement Co-ordinator to develop and grow the involvement opportunities we can offer. We now have an established Advisory Group to oversee public involvement within the Institute of Mental Health, to guide us in reflecting on our involvement activities, and to deliver the very best involvement experience we can for those who volunteer with us.

  Our mission, vision and values

We have refreshed our mission, vision and values. The changes reflect what we see in the research landscape around us today and where we see us travelling to in the next five years. Our values are the behaviours and beliefs that we wish to see emdoied across all our research work and brought to life by everyone we work with.

Mission

Inspiring research that improves mental health care and connects academic, clinical, and lived experience expertise.

Vision

Through our unique partnership, and by involving people directly affected by mental health problems, we will together produce research that will inspire change and improve the mental health of people locally, nationally, and internationally.

Values

What do our values mean to us?

Collaboration

• Our research projects aim to be interdisciplinary connecting people with academic, clinical, and lived experience expertise.
• We will provide the conditions for innovation and research to flourish.
• We will strengthen existing partnerships and seek new alliances.

Impact

• Our research encourages discovery and innovation, alongside effectiveness and sustainability.
• We will strive to ensure that our research is well communicated, disseminated, and implemented, in a way that is meaningful and accessible.
• We commit to being open to challenge and change.

Inclusion

• Our research excels when it includes a wide range of opinions and experiences.
• Our research will welcome and empower our diverse community, putting patient/public involvement and engagement at the heart of our work.
• Our research will recognize the impact of disadvantage and deprivation including poverty, unemployment, trauma, and related issues
• We will be inspired by, and in turn inspire, support and value our researchers, staff, and PPI contributors.

Effectiveness

• We will ensure efficient systems and processes to make sure our work is high quality, timely, and represents good value for money.
• We will abide by high standards of integrity, professionalism, and governance.
• From the conception of a research idea through to the mobilisation of a project, we will strive to achieve best practice in research delivery and governance.

  Objectives for the future

Our vision and values are brought to life through our four key areas of strategic objectives:

Collaboration

• Reflect the strategic research objectives and values of the University of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
• Foster a culture of collaborative and interdisciplinary working across our Centres of Excellence, public contributors, research groups, membership base, regional NIHR networks and our local community across all research activities.
• Allow skills and knowledge gathered through interdisciplinary projects and practice-based experiences to inform our research questions.
• Champion our research impact and outputs, demonstrating and reinforcing the benefits of our founding partnership.

Impact

• Secure further research programmes and national centres of research excellence with an infrastructure and grant income which sustains our work, now and in the future.
• Nurture and develop our patient and public involvement practice, fully realising the vital contribution that lived experience and co-production brings to our research.
• Ensuring communications about our research are accessible to a diverse audience, across a variety of channels, to ensure the impact and profile of our work can be shared widely.
• Produce high quality, relevant, and impactful mental health research and publications.
• Continue to increase our public support and engagement with mental health charities and community groups.

Inclusion

• Proactively support the career development pathways of all our researchers, research students, academics, operational team members and PPI contributors.
• Proactively support our Public Advisory Group members, and our staff, to be able to deliver the best practice approach to patient and public involvement.
• Encourage our researchers to develop their diverse skills and expertise through continuous learning and improvement and to recognise the impact of disadvantage and deprivation in their studies.
• Deliver public engagement activities within our local communities to increase awareness of our work and encourage participation.
• Champion and support a diverse and accessible public arts and creativity programme that demonstrates the positive value of the arts for wellbeing and mental health.

Effectiveness

• Support continuous innovations in health and social care systems, working collaboratively to create evidence to improve services and communities.
• Improve our understanding and ability to increase the speed of knowledge exchange getting research into clinical practice and driving ideas from practice into research.
• Provide a sustainable and nurturing community of support for our researchers, helping them to navigate their way around research delivery and implementation systems.
• Ensure sustainable growth for our research centres, developing new research talent, with attention to both horizon scanning and succession planning.

  What lies ahead?

This strategy defines our research objectives and purpose of our centres of excellence. Over the next five years we will undoubtedly see new and emerging research areas, influenced by a post-pandemic healthcare system, a rise in health inequalities and social disadvantage.

We must build the capability to not only deliver what we have aspired to do but have the flexibility to adapt to unforeseen challenges and opportunities. Looking to our founding partners the University of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, we must reflect their key priorities to retain relevance and connection and engage the scientific and healthcare workforce in research.

We must also consider how new Zero Carbon commitments in both partner organisations will affect how we deliver and manage our research projects. Our university partners span far beyond School of Medicine colleagues, with exciting interdisciplinary projects taking place in the School of Health Sciences, Psychology, Social Sciences, Law, Computer Sciences, Education, Policy and Engagement, as well as the Nottingham Business School. We and our research partners serve a diverse community, who we strive to involve in our activities, whilst delivering research that reflects their needs. Our relationship with our clinical and healthcare colleagues within Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust continues to develop as we see the launch of the Trust’s new 2022-2027 strategy, outlining its research aspirations for the next five years.

Understanding the health landscape, NHS pressures, effectiveness of interventions and patient needs in both physical and mental health will be key to our evidence-based research having real-world positive impact in clinical services.

Our research will have global aspirations

Technology has broken down the barriers that can prevent international collaboration – we must embrace these opportunities and work across borders to become multicultural as well as multi-disciplinary. To have influence at a national level we must ensure our research is relevant to the mental health research priorities of our major funders, such as the NIHR.
We must take learning and ideas from outside influences back into our research projects; especially reflecting technological developments in clinical practice and the wider healthcare
industry.

As the legacy of the Covid pandemic remains unclear, we cannot ignore the changes it has already caused in the research world and the pressure it has placed on the global population’s mental health.

The Institute of Mental Health’s future research projects will continue to be inextricably linked to the collective experiences of recent years and the ongoing need to increase public awareness about mental health issues – the need for our research has never been greater.