The Division of Psychiatry has sustained robust analysis momentum over the previous yr, with main funding successes, important philanthropic funding, influential analysis outputs, and contributions to nationwide coverage and infrastructure that help enhancements in psychological well being.
Analysis exercise throughout the Division stays intensive and internationally impactful. Over the yr, Departmental researchers produced 549 peer-reviewed publications, reflecting the breadth of labor spanning fundamental science, scientific analysis and inhabitants psychological well being. Complementing these outputs, the Analysis Assist crew supported 346 funding purposes, and 52 new funding awards commenced, enabling a variety of progressive analysis programmes to progress – and hopefully making certain our ongoing productiveness within the coming years.
In partnership with Oxford Well being NHS Basis Belief and Aston College, the College of Oxford was chosen to host a £16.3 million NIHR Utilized Analysis Collaboration (ARC) to help infrastructure that can enhance folks’s well being. Different main new awards embody two massive Wellcome-funded tasks centered on advancing goal validation for novel psychological well being drug discovery, and on making use of neuroscience to enhance understanding of signs in anxiousness, melancholy and psychosis (in collaboration with UCL). As a closing instance, over the last month, researchers within the Division had been awarded prestigious Wellcome Accelerator and Psychological Well being Platform Fellowship awards, recognising management in collaborative analysis designed to speed up discovery and translation in psychological well being.
The Division has benefited from beneficiant philanthropic help this yr. Important presents from the Bukhman Basis are supporting analysis centered on little one and adolescent psychiatry and mindfulness. A transformative £27 million present has additionally funded the institution of the Oxford Centre for Rising Minds Analysis, devoted to advancing understanding of psychological well being challenges in younger folks.
We had been delighted to see Armin Raznahan appointed to the W.A. Handley Chair within the Division of Psychiatry, recognising his excellent contributions to developmental neuroscience and psychiatric analysis.
Supporting the subsequent technology of researchers stays a precedence. The Broadening Horizons journey grant scheme has continued to allow doctoral college students, early profession researchers, and others who face boundaries to funding, to attend conferences. We made £15k of awards to 21 researchers.
The inaugural Award in reminiscence of Dr Valeria Frighi was introduced to psychology trainee Michael Barry, recognising excellence in mental disabilities analysis.
Main lecturers from the Division had been recognised on the 2025 Clarivate Extremely Cited Researchers record, highlighting the worldwide attain and affect of their work. Our researchers additionally contributed to an replace of the NICE Actual-World Proof Framework, serving to to form the usage of real-world knowledge in well being and care steering.
We thank everybody – researchers, college students, and help workers – for his or her contributions to a different extremely profitable yr for the Division.