Wellcome Trust.
The Wellcome Trust has announced a major global funding opportunity to support innovative mental health research.
The Mental Health Award 2025: Leveraging Longitudinal Data to Transform Early Intervention will award £1–5 million per project over three to five years.
The focus is on improving early identification and intervention for anxiety, depression, and psychosis, especially among young people under 30.
Purpose of the Award
This one-off award is designed to move mental health systems toward prevention by supporting research that:
- Uses existing longitudinal data (minimum three timepoints)
- Develops and validates predictive models
- Tests real-world interventions based on those predictions
Wellcome aims to fund projects that don’t just identify early signs of mental health problems, but also act on them through practical, scalable solutions.
Who Can Apply
Applicants must form interdisciplinary teams that include:
- A mental health researcher
- A data scientist or statistician
- At least one person with lived experience of mental health challenge
Eligible institutions include:
- higher education institution
- research institute
- non-academic healthcare organisation
- not-for-profit or non-governmental research organisation
The lead applicant can be based in any country except mainland China.
Collaborations involving low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are strongly encouraged.
Funding Details
Each selected project will receive:
- Between £1 million and £5 million
- For a duration of three to five years
Funding can cover:
- Research staff and salaries (including lived experience contributors)
- Equipment, software, and data access
- Travel, training, and conferences
- Public engagement and ethics support
New data collection is permitted, but the project must primarily rely on existing datasets. Creating brand-new cohort studies is not eligible.
Research Requirements
All applications must:
- Use or link existing longitudinal datasets (e.g,. health records, cohort studies, school data)
- Develop predictive models to detect early risk or progression of mental health conditions
- Validate models using independent datasets
- Include a clear experimental component, such as:
- Behavioural or psychological interventions
- Social or community-based programmes
- Digital or policy-driven strategies
Wellcome encourages the use of diverse data types, including text, audio, or wearable sensor data.
Timeline
- Optional scope check: Submit a 200-word summary by July 8, 2025
- Full application deadline: July 22, 2025, at 17:00 BST
- Shortlisting and interviews: September–December 2025
- Final decisions: End of December 2025
Selection Criteria
Applications will be evaluated on four main pillars:
- Scientific quality – strength of predictive models, risk analysis, and data ethics
- Team composition – cross-disciplinary design and inclusion of lived experience
- Institutional environment – infrastructure, collaboration, and governance
- Meaningful inclusion – involvement and compensation of people with lived experience in decision-making
Support for Applicants
Wellcome provides several tools to support high-quality applications:
- MindMatch platform for building diverse teams
- A recorded webinar explaining the award scope and criteria
- The Atlas of Longitudinal Datasets, listing over 1,600 data sources
- Scope check feedback, offered for early concept submissions
Why This Matters
Globally, most mental health issues begin before the age of 24. Yet services are often reactive rather than preventive.
This award offers a pathway to shift that narrative by turning long-term data into early-warning systems and linking them to practical action.
For researchers and institutions in Africa and other LMICs, this funding offers:
- A chance to lead impactful, equity-focused mental health research
- A platform to scale innovations that reach young people earlier
- Support to build cross-border, transdisciplinary partnerships
For full details and updates, visit:https://wellcome.org/research-funding/schemes/mental-health-award-leveraging-longitudinal-data-transform-early
About the Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom, dedicated to supporting science, innovation, and solutions to urgent health challenges.
Founded in 1936, Wellcome funds research to improve human health and well-being, with a strong emphasis on mental health, infectious disease, and climate and health.
Through its mental health strategy, Wellcome aims to drive a transformation in how mental health problems are understood and treated, particularly by supporting science that enables earlier intervention and integrates lived experience.
The Trust collaborates with institutions, researchers, and communities around the world—especially in low- and middle-income countries—to fund work that is ethical, inclusive, and focused on long-term impact.
