Mental Health
Mental health disorders are a huge and increasing problem in the UK; already one third of people will suffer from a mental health disorder during their lifetime, and the total cost to just the UK economy was £48.6bn in 2007 rising to £88.5bn in 2026.
The predicted changes in the global population over the next 20 years will have profound implications on the burden of mental health. Although mental health is an area in which UCL has not yet exploited its full potential, there are over 200 PIs working on topics related to mental health, from basic discovery, through translational research to clinical science.
Furthermore, there is the potential to harness the unique local resources of our academic health sciences network, UCL Partners and our local mental health Trust to deliver impact. However, much of this expertise is fragmented and would benefit from interdisciplinary coordination and strategic targeting of resources.
UCL
has the opportunity to
create a sustainable focus for both basic and applied research addressing the
major mental health challenges of our time. Progress in understanding the
aetiology of mental health disorders and developing new treatments will require
internationally leading discovery science grounded in an attempt to establish
mechanistic accounts of human cognition. UCL should also
build further upon external collaborations and partnerships related to mental
health.
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