Past leadership

A message from Alice Gast

Imperial College is at its best when it brings together its talented students and staff to work on truly challenging problems. Mental health issues are the leading cause of disability worldwide, with one in four people thought to be affected. It is becoming an urgent matter as health professionals are seeing a dramatic increase in young people in mental health crises in A&E.

This complex field requires multidisciplinary solutions.  The Imperial College Mental Health Research Network is a vital new collaboration, which will harness expertise across multiple scientific fields and facilitate new perspectives and approaches to the growing mental health crisis. It will connect the many important projects and research already happening across the College, such as cognitive neuroscience and psychiatry in the Division of Brain Sciences; life course epidemiology, statistical, clinical trial and patient/public partnership expertise in the School of Public Health; data modelling and health improvement capacity of the Institute of Global Health Innovation, and our population and health efforts harnessing emerging innovations in AI, neurotechnology and data analytics in the Faculty of Engineering.

This is the beginning of an exciting collaborative effort to help to transform services and care for people with mental health issues. We hope that others will join us.

Alice Gast, Ex President of Imperial College London