University of Liverpool Professors Mark Gabbay and Dan Joyce will play a central role in a major new mental health research initiative, following a £11million award from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The pair, who are based in the University's Institute of Population Health, will contribute expertise in health inequalities, the use of large-scale datasets and AI, and the co‑production of research with the public, patients and carers.
Their involvement comes as the University of Huddersfield prepares to open the Centre for Equity in Mental Health (CEMH) in April 2026. The award - the largest ever received by Huddersfield's School of Human and Health Sciences - was secured through the prestigious and highly competitive NIHR Mental Health Research Groups (MHRG) programme, supporting five years of research aimed at transforming local mental health research capacity and capability.
Profs Gabbay and Joyce will work alongside the CEMH's collaborators, including M‑RIC (the Mental Health Research for Innovation Centre) and the Liverpool Clinical Trials Centre, helping build future trials capacity and develop research that addresses entrenched health inequalities.
Professor Joyce said: "We are delighted to be partnering with the University of Huddersfield on this important initiative. By bringing together regional expertise and the lived experiences of local communities, we can build a much stronger evidence base to tackle persistent mental health inequalities. This investment will allow us to deliver research that makes a real and lasting difference to people's lives."
Professor Gabbay, Director of NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast added: "This is fantastic news for regional research into mental health inequalities. With this addition, we now have four NIHR mental health research infrastructures supported by Applied Research Collaboration 2 North West Coast (ARC2NWC). This includes our collaborative work with researchers at Liverpool, Lancaster University, and Edge Hill University."
The launch of the centre follows extensive work led by Professors Michael Doyle and Ann Caress, who partnered with South West Yorkshire Partnership Teaching NHS Foundation Trust and locally‑based collaborator Debs Teale of The Debs Effect to evaluate mental health service provision across Kirklees, Calderdale and Wakefield during 2024-2025.
Professor Lucy Chappell, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Chief Executive Officer of the NIHR, emphasised the importance of community‑based research: "Mental health challenges can be isolating, especially for people in our most under‑served regions. By moving our research focus into the places where people live and work, we are supporting a shift toward more preventative, community‑based mental health care."
