The International Alliance of Mental Health Research Funders was founded in 2009, by the Graham Boeckh Foundation, to unite the world’s public and private funders of mental health research.
Depression, anxiety, psychosis, and other mental health conditions are the leading cause of ‘years lived with disability’ (WHO, 2022), with over 1 billion people living with mental health challenges.
Although effective treatments exist, they don't work for everyone, and they’re not widely available. There is a pressing need for more research to identify what works, for whom, and in what settings so we can develop new and better treatments.
Coordination between research funders is critical to achieving this. The IAMHRF is the world’s only forum for funders to convene around shared challenges and increase their impact through collaboration.
“[We value the] opportunity to share our work and landscaping to help inform others' priorities and ensure research is addressing the biggest gaps.”
Our membership includes over 30 of the world’s largest mental health research funders and partner organisations. If you share our mission to increase the impact of mental health research, we would love to hear from you.
Our approach
Our strategic approach centres on four key pillars: convene, curate, challenge, and celebrate.
CONVENE
Our webinars, working groups, and annual meeting bring funders together around emerging challenges and opportunities in mental health research and funding.
CURATE
We compile and curate new evidence, insights and resources to inform priority setting and investment in mental health. Our flagship report, The Inequities of Mental Health Research Funding, maps the global distribution of mental health research funding.
CHALLENGE
We promote the development and implementation of new practices and standards in research funding — from adopting common measures to embedding lived experience.
CELEBRATE
We collect and amplify the success stories from mental health research.
Current projects
We work on a range of topics affecting the mental health research sector, and responding to our members' needs and interests. These include:
- Mapping the distribution of mental health research funding
- Driving the adoption of common measures
- Involving people with lived experience
- Promoting equity in mental health research
- Exploring the risks and opportunities in digital mental health
- Unlocking more investment in prevention and early intervention research
“I found another organization who is interested in similar topics. We explored to what extent we might be able to collaborate.”
Our achievements
Our flagship report is The Inequities of Mental Health Research Funding.
Published in 2020, this study was the first comprehensive global analysis of the distribution of mental health research funding , including over 75,000 research grants from ~350 funders in over 35 countries. We’re currently working on a follow-up which will explore recent changes to funding trends and outputs.
Building on the efforts of our cross-funder working groups, we’ve published influential papers on common measures in mental health and lived experience in research funding.
We also co-sponsored the Global Mental Health: Research Without Borders conference in 2023.
You can read more about our recent achievements in our annual reviews.