The Mental Health Catalyst, led by IfM Engage, the knowledge-transfer company of the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing, has announced the organisations collaborating to deliver this four-year Wellcome-supported programme.
The Catalyst aims to accelerate the development and uptake of new and better interventions for conditions involving clinically depressed mood. It brings together expertise in innovation management, evidence synthesis, lived experience engagement, global mental health and translating research into practice.
The programme addresses a critical gap in the translation of mental health research into effective interventions with real-world impact by bringing together key collaborators:
- IfM Engage
- The William Templeton Foundation for Young People’s Mental Health (YPMH)
- Cochrane Evidence Synthesis Unit Germany / UK
- Generation Mental Health
- Mental Health Innovation Network (MHIN)
Clinically depressed mood imposes profound costs on individuals, families, societies and economies. It disrupts education, employment, physical health and relationships, contributes to disability and recurrent illness and creates substantial economic losses, while increasing pressure on already overstretched health and social systems.
While scientific understanding of depressed mood has advanced substantially, progress in translating that knowledge into interventions that deliver sustained impact at scale has been uneven and slow. The initial four-year programme, Catalyst 1.0, will apply a structured Understand : Innovate : Implement approach to synthesise evidence, identify high-potential intervention opportunities, understand barriers to innovation and adoption at scale, and create a Mission Map to help align future research, innovation, investment and implementation.
A collaborative programme
IfM Engage will lead programme design and delivery, applying structured innovation, roadmapping, ecosystem analysis and strategic prioritisation methods developed through IfM research. These methods will be used to support collaboration across the mental health ecosystem and translate complex evidence into coordinated action.
YPMH is a founding collaborator in the development and application of the Understand : Innovate : Implement methodology that underpins the Catalyst. Since 2019, the IfM, IfM Engage and YPMH have worked together to apply innovation management and roadmapping approaches to mental health. Within the Catalyst, YPMH brings experience in helping to accelerate the translation of research into practical, scalable interventions to prevent and reduce mental ill health across the life course.
The Cochrane Evidence Synthesis Unit Germany / UK will lead the programme’s systematic evidence synthesis and pathway mapping work. It will apply transparent and reproducible methods to integrate evidence across biological, psychological and socio-ecological domains.
This work will provide the foundation for the collaborative identification of strategic intervention points and inform the identification, prioritisation and development of high-potential intervention opportunities across pharmaceutical, digital and non-pharmaceutical modalities.
Generation Mental Health will support the design and coordination of lived experience engagement. Through its international network, it will help ensure that the perspectives of people affected by depressed mood inform the Catalyst’s programme design, activities and outputs, including through lived experience advisory panels and working groups.
MHIN, hosted by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, will support global stakeholder engagement and dissemination. It will engage stakeholders across Africa, Asia and Latin America, helping to ensure that diverse perspectives and priorities inform the Catalyst’s work and that its outputs reach the wider global mental health community.
Professor Tim Minshall, Head of the IfM and Chair of the Mental Health Catalyst Steering Committee, says, “Addressing depressed mood requires not only scientific insight, but also structured methods for translating that insight into interventions that can be developed, validated and implemented at scale. The Catalyst brings together complementary expertise in evidence synthesis, innovation, lived experience and global mental health to help accelerate progress towards more effective interventions.”
Peter Templeton, Project Director of the Mental Health Catalyst at IfM Engage, says, “The Mental Health Catalyst has been designed as a highly collaborative programme. By bringing together IfM Engage’s structured innovation and stakeholder engagement methods with the expertise of the Cochrane Evidence Synthesis Unit Germany / UK, YPMH, Generation Mental Health and MHIN, we can build a stronger platform for identifying, prioritising and accelerating intervention opportunities with real potential for impact.”
Catalyst 1.0 will produce prioritised portfolios of intervention opportunities, analysis of systemic barriers and the actions needed to overcome them, and integrated roadmaps towards better, stakeholder-agreed future states. It will also help develop opportunities that are ready for investment and funding. Together, these outputs will form the Mental Health Catalyst Mission Map – a strategic framework to support coordinated action across research, innovation, policy, funding and implementation communities.
Researchers, innovators, healthcare professionals, funders, policymakers, system leaders and people with lived experience who are interested in contributing to the programme are invited to engage with the Mental Health Catalyst.
Find out more
To learn more or explore opportunities to collaborate, please see www.mentalhealthcatalyst.org or contact mhc-enquiries@eng.cam.ac.uk
