NIHR Mental Health Research Groups Competition Brief

Introduction

Established in 2006, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) seeks to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research and is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). Its funding programmes support high quality research in a broad range of topic areas that benefits the NHS, public health and social care. This includes mental health research, and career development funding awards for mental health researchers.

Innovation lies at the centre of the NIHR’s strategic mission, described in Best Research for Best Health: The Next Chapter. Within this, NIHR has identified seven areas of  strategic focus, one of these includes bringing clinical and applied research to under-served regions and communities with major health needs.

The NIHR is looking to establish up to ten NIHR Mental Health Research Groups (NIHR MHRGs) in geographical areas with high mental health (MH) burden, limited local research capacity and low recruitment into MH research studies (“target areas”). These will be partnerships between higher education institutions (HEIs) based in England within target areas, and partner HEIs based in England with more experience and expertise in mental health research, who have a shared interest and vision.

NIHR MHRGs will deliver ambitious five year applied mental health research programmes, with the overarching aims of:

• building capability and capacity in the target geographical areas;
• developing a portfolio of substantive, at scale applied health research with an emphasis on specific needs of local areas, engaging with the local health, public health and social care systems and local communities with lived experience of mental health conditions and of using mental health services and support.

This document sets out in detail the process for HEIs to submit a MHRG application.

It is recognised that some HEIs wishing to establish a MHRG may not have the capacity and expertise to design and deliver such a programme of work at the outset and therefore a scheme is available to allow for application first for a five-year Mental Health Research Leaders Award (see Fig.1 below).  Those with some existing capacity who wish to apply directly for a MHRG have the option of first applying for a small development award if necessary to support preparatory work for development of their full MHRG application.

We anticipate running at least three MHRG funding competitions so that those who are successful in obtaining Mental Health Research Development, or Leaders, awards have the opportunity to apply after developing a proposal.

NIHR funding routes to boost mental health research capacity - flow chart

The flow chart below shows the different routes into the MHRG funding scheme for higher educational institutions (HEIs). 

• Higher educational institutions with no current mental health research capacity can apply for a five-year Mental Health Leaders Award (up to £2.5m over 5 years), to support a dedicated team to work up to a full MHRG application
• Higher educational institutions with some MH research capacity, that are based in target areas, and have identified a suitable partnership, can:
  • either apply directly for a MHRG award (up to £11m over 5 years)
  • or can apply first for a Development Award (up to £150k over 1 year) to support development of the MHRG application

Background

Mental health problems are the single largest cause of disability in the UK and represent an  ever-increasing burden across all ages of the population, and health and social care systems. The impact mental health problems can have on individuals and the wider societal and economic consequences is vast and people living with mental health conditions often suffer from additional long term physical illnesses, shortened life expectancy, social exclusion, socioeconomic disadvantage, and increased need for provision of health and welfare support. Despite the high prevalence, many populations do not receive the support they need and there are significant regional inequalities in accessing care. To address this mismatch, the NIHR aims to broaden the current research base - which is largely concentrated in a small number of geographical locations - and boost capacity and capability to conduct applied mental health research across England. The NIHR endeavours to support high-quality and timely evidence that delivers mental health improvements to areas and groups where they are most needed, as outlined in the recently established Mental Health Research Goals 2020-2030.

Mental health research is an ongoing priority for the DHSC and the NIHR. Following the 2020/21 Spending Review, the NIHR announced a rapid new Mental Health Research Initiative (MHRI) to help tackle the disparity between regional needs and mental health research activity. To date, the three-year MHRI has funded more than 100 new mental health projects in areas of unmet need across its research infrastructure, research schools and funding programmes. The MHRI also provided funding to support a unique collaboration across the NIHR School for Public Health Research, School for Primary Care Research and School for Social Care Research, as well as several capacity building endeavours such as career development awards, Fellowships, and the GROW development programme for budding mental health researchers.

The establishment of the MHRGs marks the NIHR’s ongoing commitment to address the disparity in mental health research, aiming to develop and deliver a balanced portfolio of at-scale, high-impact applied mental health research, relevant to the mental health needs of the target areas and their local communities.

Scope

For the purposes of the Mental Health Research Initiative and all associated programmes, the scope of eligible mental health research activity is limited to diagnosable mental health conditions within the HRCS mental health category, including depression, schizophrenia, psychosis and personality disorders, addiction, suicide, anxiety, eating disorders, learning disabilities, bipolar disorder, autistic spectrum disorders, and studies of normal psychology, cognitive function and behaviour. Research addressing an alternate HRCS code such as HRCS neurological category, which includes dementia, is out of scope for this call, but strongly supported by the NIHR as explained on our Dementia and Neurodegeneration web page.

Mental Health Research Group Award (MHRG)

The award is aimed at both HEIs based in England with limited applied mental health research capacity and those with no existing applied MH research capacity, who are keen to establish or expand into applied mental health research within the target areas. The HEI with no/limited capacity will act as lead applicant, and should apply in collaboration with an ‘established’ partner(s) HEI(s) based in England. The overall objective of this collaboration is to support the development of the lead institution to become a self-sustaining group. The role of the ‘established’ partner will be to provide mentoring, sharing of resources, innovation, training, knowledge exchange and applied mental health research expertise, to support the shared ambition to bolster the applied mental health capacity and capability of the lead HEI.

The MHRG will support proposals for up to £2.2m per year, for a period of up to 5 years, (maximum £11m in total). It is expected that this funding will enable delivery of a five-year research programme focused on local applied mental health research needs, with the overarching aim to:

• Build capability and capacity in the target areas, and propose a sustainable trajectory for future MH leaders, within the target areas, beyond the period of NIHR funding.
• Develop and deliver a portfolio of impactful, substantive, at scale applied health research with emphasis on specific needs of local places, engaging and working in partnership with the local health, public health, social care systems, local communities and people with lived experience of mental health conditions to deliver the research.
• Generate collaborations and opportunities for novel research that will improve mental health outcomes for people in underserved areas through improving practice and informing policy.
• Promote interdisciplinary approaches to working (including, but not limited to: health, allied health and social care professions, health economics, data science, behavioural and social sciences and statistics), to ensure that research objectives can be delivered.
• Deliver implementable research findings and outputs that will lead to clear and identifiable benefits and impacts for people living with mental health conditions, their families and carers and the wider public.
• FundHEIs to work together with the NHS, social care, third sector and primary and public health partners, to tackle mental health problems and provide some stability of funding to support the long-term development of high quality applied research groups through support for:
  • strategic institutional partnerships seeking to expand research programmes into applied mental health or new geographies/areas.
  • applied health research partnerships of specialist researchers within institutions comparatively new to applied mental health research, and institutions with a more established applied mental health research portfolio, building long-term applied mental health research capacity and capability within the target areas, and strengthening regional research management capability.

While remaining flexible, we anticipate supporting applications that:

• Include research partnerships with a clear, shared ambition to address the challenges faced by people in areas historically under-served by applied mental health research.
• Include and incorporate plans to build interdisciplinary applied research teams with relevant experience, to ensure research has potential to translate into benefits for local communities.
• Propose, and then further develop during the life of the award, an at scale applied health research programme, or multiple themed programmes. Programme/s should be tractable, i.e.implementable, within the local NHS, public health or social care sector, and which are likely to deliver a stepped change to practise and to the experience and outcomes for people living with mental health conditions, and the wider public, based in the target area.
  • Each programme is likely to comprise a number of high quality interrelated projects, usually described in separate work packages, that form a coherent theme, where added value is gained from the combination of the various strands of research.
  • Applications will be expected to include well-developed plans for the first 2 years of the MHRG work programme, with detailed plans for years 3-5 to be developed after commencement of the award and submitted to the NIHR for review and approval.
• Explore and use diverse methodological approaches (for example, such as economic modelling, qualitative approaches, applied epidemiology, enhancement of existing trials and population studies through longitudinal follow-up, rigorous comparative evaluation of existing prevention strategies and models of care and analysis of routine data sources etc.) as well as traditional applied health research methods.
• Address issues of inclusivity around sex, gender, age, ethnicity, social barriers to health and economic impact when formulating research questions and delivering research plans.
• Propose a coherent plan for engagement with the local community and people with lived experience of mental health problems, demonstrating the ways they will help inform the design and conduct of the research, with an emphasis on co-production.
• Include relevant engagement with policy makers, local communities, service users/patients, carers and the public, civil society organisations, and charities over the lifetime of the award.
• Include tailored plans for implementation, knowledge mobilisation and dissemination to relevant stakeholders in the target area.
• Demonstrate a strong collaborative approach to programme leadership, decision-making, capacity strengthening, governance, appropriate distribution of funds, ethics processes, data ownership, and dissemination of findings.
• Support and embed bi-directional learning between partner institutions and collaborating organisations within the target geographical area.
• Propose a coherent and sustainable plan for capacity and capability strengthening at individual and institutional level, and include a trajectory for establishing a pipeline of future leaders within applied mental health research within the target areas
  • Individuals whose academic career development is being supported through NIHR MHRG funding can benefit from NIHR Academy membership and the support and development activities offered as part of this.
• Demonstrate the strength of institutional commitment to the research partnership and to sustained research capacity strengthening beyond the lifetime of the award.

Mental Health Research Group awards will NOT support applications which:

• Do not meet the published call criteria for Mental Health Research Groups.
• Are led, or clearly directed, by institutions with a pre-existing substantial applied mental health research portfolio.
• Do not include a clear collaborative partnership led by a HEI with limited applied mental health research capacity in collaboration with a HEI with a substantial applied mental health research capability.
• Are not at scale, broad, multifaceted applied research and capacity building programmes.
• Are not clearly expanding the applied mental health research capability/capacity of the lead HEI to deliver applied mental health research pertinent to the target area in a sustainable manner.
• Applications which include basic laboratory/discovery research, experimental medicine or research involving animals.
• Consist solely of one of the following:
  • large single randomised clinical trials (RCTs) of interventions; any RCT must be part of a wider cohesive programme of research and capacity development work
  • epidemiological studies
  • evidence synthesis (e.g., systematic reviews)
  • evaluations of existing services, where the programme of work does not include evidence-based development and improvement of these services
  • dissemination
  • establishing new patient cohorts, biobanks or bio-sample collections or data collection studies (samples or data from existing biobanks, patient registries cohorts may be used)

It is understood that many HEIs in target areas may not be in a position to immediately apply for a MHRG award and therefore additional funding to enable preparatory work to prepare a MHRG award application will be available. Support will therefore be available at two complementary levels:

• Mental Health Research Leaders Award
• Mental Health Research Development Award

Mental Health Research Leaders Award (MHLA)

The Mental Health Research Leaders Award is designed to support HEIs with a strategic interest in undertaking targeted and applied mental health research that will be directly beneficial for the local communities and health and care system, who currently lack the institutional capacity to do so. Leader Awards can be for up to £2.5m, up to 5 years, with an expectation that this could support at least three research posts (professor/reader/senior lecturer, post doctoral, post graduate) together with public partnership and research inclusion activities. The term of the award is sufficient to aid recruitment and retention of an applied mental health research team, but Leaders will be encouraged to develop a proposal within 12-24 months to graduate to the full MHRG award. Successful applicant HEIs would be responsible for recruitment of a Leader and associated research team, with appropriate safeguards and oversight from the NIHR Academy.

Once appointed, the primary focus of the Leader would be to create and lead a team to co-develop a credible proposal for a full MHRG award. Key areas of work may include research into evidence gaps, local mental health priorities and service delivery challenges, and building relevant academic collaborations, which will then inform a Group application. 

In order to be successful in developing and maintaining an applied mental health research team, Leaders will need to be able to draw on broader mentorship, support and advice from researchers with expertise in general applied health methodologies within the hosting HEI. HEIs that currently possess such expertise will be expected to demonstrate how this will be harnessed to support the Leader and the new team. HEIs that lack the capability to provide such support internally will need to ensure that the Leader will be supported by mentors with relevant expertise from partner institutions, whilst also providing a clear plan for how they will begin to develop their own capacity in these areas during the award.

Leaders will be a part of the NIHR Academy and will benefit from the support and development activities offered, but will also be expected to have a well-developed training/mentorship plan proposed as part of the application.

Whilst there is no formal expectation or guarantee that recipients of a Leader Award will be successful in obtaining a subsequent Group award, and all proposals for the Group award will be judged on their own merits, the aim of this scheme is to facilitate the long term development of MHRGs in the target areas.

Mental Health Research Development Award (MHDA)

The Mental Health Research Development Award is designed to support a HEI to carry out targeted preparatory work to develop a competitive Mental Health Research Group application. Development Awards are aimed at HEIs that have some pre-existing applied mental health research capacity (in the sense that they feel they have a team which could apply for an MHRG) but are not currently in a position to apply for a MHRG in Round 1.

Broad ranging development work is permitted, with an expectation that award-holders will work towards the following objectives:

• Create collaborative research partnerships, such as with service providers/Trusts, community groups, HEIs with established applied mental health research capabilities.
• Undertake preparatory research to identify local needs (e.g. research prioritisation).
• Develop an inclusive applied mental health research strategy/plan.
• Develop a credible Group application.

Individual awards can be for up to £150,000, up to 12 months. The amount of funding awarded, however, is determined by the scale and nature of the development work to be conducted. There is no formal expectation or guarantee that recipients of a Development Award will be successful in obtaining a subsequent Group award in the future. All future applications for the MHRG programme will be judged on their own merits against the published criteria.

Eligibility

While all universities in England are eligible to apply, the MHRG programme is aimed at HEIs with limited applied mental health research capacity wishing to expand, and those with no existing applied MH research capacity, situated within, or within easy reach of “target areas”.

The HEI with no/limited capacity will act as lead applicant and should clearly be in overall control of the research plan/strategy of the Group. HEIs with an existing track record or significant portfolio of applied mental health research will not be eligible to apply for this award as a lead applicant. However, they are expected to work collaboratively and utilise their experience and infrastructure to support the less experienced HEI to deliver the applied mental health research programme as part of the MHRG award (for example, to support development through mentoring, sharing of resources, innovation, training, knowledge exchange and mental health research expertise.) It will be permissible to involve more than two HEIs in the collaborative bid, where appropriate.

Suitability as either a 'Lead' or 'Established' partner will depend on the HEI’s existing capacity and experience within applied mental health research. Applicants will be asked to provide evidence of their relative research capacity and capability to justify being considered either a ‘Lead’ or ‘Established’ partner, within the spirit of the intended outcomes of this funding scheme (and further details on the information required will be provided in the Application Guidance).  As an example, an ‘Established’ partner would be considered as one known in the research community to be an effective ‘net exporter’ of mental health research of benefit to the UK public. That is to say, the HEI’s ‘Established’ research teams routinely produce high quality research, across a range of, but not necessarily all, mental health research categories, which tangibly influences national and regional policy, practice and outcomes for people with lived experience of mental health conditions, service users/patients, carers and the wider public. A lead HEI's MH research portfolio would not yet be of this calibre, or breadth, and the HEI would be explicitly seeking to develop high quality research capability to a level where it could meaningfully influence regional and local policy, practice and generate improvements for the benefit of service users/patients and the public in the target areas.

Potential target areas across England include, but where justified by robust evidence are not limited to, those areas highlighted as having a high burden by the Small Area Mental Health Index (SAMHI) Place-based Longitudinal Data Resource. See also Appendix 1.

The suitability of a HEI to be a ‘Lead’ or ‘Established’ partner on any of the funding streams, as well as the suitability of proposed ‘target areas’ will be made by the advisory committee. Advisory committee decisions can not be appealed, therefore, to avoid any confusion, it is vital that applicants provide clear justification where requested in the application form.

Funding

Detailed information on eligible and non-eligible costs, as well as guidance on completing the budget forms are available within the Application Form Guidance.

The funding limits for each type of award are as follows:

• Mental Health Research Group Award - £11m over 5 years
• Mental Health Research Leaders Award - £2.5m over 5 years
• Mental Health Development Award - £150K over 12 months

For MHRG awards we would expect to see a substantial majority of the funding allocated to the lead HEI with appropriate development assistance costs for the partner. The NIHR accepts that the level of development assistance costs will vary and will depend on the resources, expertise and infrastructure available to the lead HEI (for example lead HEIs that do not host a Health Economics (HE) team may need to buy-in significantly more HE support from the partner that those lead HEIs that do already have a HE team.) We would expect to see the level of development assistance costs across the length of the award profiled to match the expected requirements for support from the ‘established’ HEI at various stages of the award (i.e. a larger degree of funding & support may be required in the earlier stages of the awards which may reduce over time as the lead HEI becomes more established.)

For MHRG and MHLA awards up to 100% of full economic costs (FEC) will be available.

For MHDA awards up to 100% of direct research costs will be available. 

Selection Criteria for Applications

The following key criteria for this call encompass the overarching NIHR principles and contribute towards the aims of the MHRG. The key criteria for funding will be incorporated within the independent advisory committee selection criteria which will be used to assess applications at the Leader Award, Development and full Groups stage.

The high level selection criteria for applications will be:

• The quality of the proposed applied research programme.
• The strength of the strategic and research plans.
• The existing applied mental health research capacity and the plan for developing capacity and capability.
• Arrangements and clarity of the proposed partnership between any research/institutional partners.
• Value for money.

The applicants for Group awards will be invited for interview by the advisory committee as part of the commissioning process. A subset of the committee will form an oversight group to provide feedback to the DHSC during the lifetime of the award, including review of detailed research plans submitted post-award.

Process and Timetable for Round 1

An independent advisory committee, who will make recommendations to the DHSC on award designation and funding, will consider all applications for NIHR Mental Health Research Group, Leader and Development Awards.

-	Mental Health Research Group Awards (MHRG)	Mental Health Research Development Awards (MHDA)	Mental Health Research Leaders   (MHLA)
Launch	20 September 2023	20 September 2023	20 September 2023
Online Application Form Opens	01 November 2023	01 November 2023	01 November 2023
Applications Close	16 January 2024	6 December 2023	16 January 2024
Outcomes	April 2024	January 2024	April 2024
Contract Start	Autumn 2024	1st April 2024 (*fixed)	Autumn 2024

Please note, we do not envisage funding all ten MHRGs in this round. Additional MHRG application rounds will be run in future years. Once the outcomes of the MHLA and MHDA applications are known an assessment will be made as to whether further funding rounds are required for these awards.

*MHDAs will be required to start work on the 1st April 2024 so that they will be ready to apply for a MHRG in 2025. Earlier start dates may be allowed if contracting is completed in time.

Appendix 1 - Small Area Mental Health Index (SAMHI)

The Small Area Mental Health Index (SAMHI) Place-based Longitudinal Data Resource is a composite annual measure of population mental health for each Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) in England and the interactive map is a useful tool to identify areas of England with significant levels of high mental health burden. Where justified by robust evidence other areas of England may also be considered.