Fund for mental health research

Mental health research is significantly underfunded compared to research into somatic illnesses, yet mental health problems have a profound impact for both the individual and society.

Most mental health research funding goes towards basic research into the origins and mechanisms of mental health problems while far less support is awarded to social sciences, leaving an important gap between research and practice. In addition, the quality of mental health research is not always optimal. This is due to different factors, including the heterogeneity in how data are measured in mental health research, making comparisons across studies very difficult.

The fund for Mental Health Research managed by the King Baudouin Foundation is a first step towards a much needed change in Belgian mental health research. The Fund will support high quality, sustainable, large-scale mental health research that embraces patient/public engagement and involvement throughout its research efforts. In preparation, in collaboration with CWTS Leiden, a portfolio analysis of the research published by Belgian researchers in scientific journals in the time period of 2018 to 2021, was performed. The data of this analysis are can be consulted using this link and a description of the methodology used can be found in the document Methodology.

Briefly, The data were categorised into 18 categories; 2 trans-diagnostic research categories and 16 condition-specific categories. Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia were not included as there is a specific program for research on dementia at the KBF. Of the condition-specific categories depression was the category with the most publication (740 out of 2719 publications) whereas only 9 publications on bipolar disorders were retrieved. When the relative amount of publications per category were compared to the relative amount of publications produced by European researchers or to the global literature in these categories, Belgium scores higher in research into personality disorders and neurodevelopmental disorders, but Belgium appears less prolific in research into eating disorders and OCD.

In order to provide an overview of the different fields contributing to the mental health research produced in Belgium, we used a classification scheme which groups various WoS Subject Categories into 1 of 9 broad disciplinary areas (Basic Medical Sciences; Healthcare, Rehabilitation & Nursing; Medical Specialty; Natural Sciences; Neurosciences, Neurology & Imaging; Psychiatry; Psychology and cognitive sciences; Public Health & Policy; Social Sciences), as expected most publications could be categorised into psychiatry, psychology, neurosciences or basic medical sciences. Yet 1 in 3 publications could be categorised into public health, healthcare, rehabilitation & nursing or social sciences.

Where possible the target age-group of the publication was retrieved as well. Out of 1613 publications related to a specific mental health condition that mentioned the age group studied, 987 studied adults; 648 studied adolescents, 648 studied children and 381 studied elderly persons.

To have an idea of the research groups involved in mental health research produced in Belgium the publications collected in the WoS were used. An algorithm developed by CWTS assigns scientific publications to individual researchers and then based on the amount of publications and the amount of co-authored publications, researchers that tend to publish together are grouped together. This means that the identified research groups may not reflect to actual existing research groups as considered by their organisations but reflect close collaborations.

We know from previous international portfolio analyses, that there is an important gap between mental health research and practice and that research efforts are currently not well aligned with stakeholders’ perceptions of mental health needs.

Every KBF fund has a steering committee that oversees the management of the fund. It is the steering committee’s task to set the agenda, and work out the strategy for the fund to achieve its objectives. If you have professional or personal expertise in mental health research, a systemic view of the research system and you are interested in helping shape the mental health research agenda of the KBF, we invite you to introduce your candidacy for the steering committee using the document Call before 25/03/2024.