Ten days left to submit proposals to the Wellcome Trust for Workplace Mental Health 2021

Dear Col­leagues,

Well­come are delight­ed to announce the launch of our Work­place Men­tal Health 2021 Request for Pro­pos­als.

Busi­ness­es all over the world are increas­ing­ly think­ing about how they can most effec­tive­ly sup­port the men­tal health of their staff, even more so in light of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic. How­ev­er, despite grow­ing inter­est and invest­ment in work­place men­tal health, we still have so much to learn about what works.

In 2020, we asked ten glob­al research teams to review the evi­dence behind a sam­ple of promis­ing approach­es for pre­vent­ing anx­i­ety and depres­sion in the work­place, focus­ing on younger work­ers. The research spanned a broad range of approach­es rang­ing from employ­ee auton­o­my to break­ing up exces­sive sit­ting to finan­cial well­be­ing inter­ven­tions. You can read a sum­ma­ry of the find­ings from this com­mis­sion on our web­site.

Now we are look­ing to com­mis­sion up to 20 research teams to review the evi­dence behind oth­er indi­vid­ual promis­ing approach­es for pre­vent­ing or address­ing men­tal health prob­lems in the work­place. This time we are broad­en­ing the scope to con­sid­er work­ers of all ages and wider men­tal health prob­lems and we’re ask­ing research teams to involve peo­ple with lived expe­ri­ence of men­tal health prob­lems in the work­place through­out their projects.

We are par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in approach­es for sup­port­ing work­ers in low- and mid­dle-income coun­tries and it is our inten­tion to com­mis­sion at least five projects where the Lead is based in a low-income or mid­dle-income coun­try. We are also espe­cial­ly inter­est­ed in research focused on sup­port­ing those who may be under­rep­re­sent­ed and/or expe­ri­enc­ing inequal­i­ties and dis­crim­i­na­tion in the workforce.

The com­mis­sion will take place between Octo­ber 2021 and March 2022 and the dead­line for sub­mit­ting an expres­sion of inter­est is 12:00 BST on Mon­day 28 June.

We would be very grate­ful for any­thing you can do to share this with your net­works and key links for the com­mis­sion are set out below:

• For full details, read our Request for Proposals
• Any­one who is inter­est­ed to apply will need to com­plete an Expres­sion of Inter­est Form by 12:00 BST on Mon­day 28 June.
• If you know peo­ple who might be inter­est­ed, please pass on this mes­sage to encour­age oth­ers to apply.

Thanks in advance for your support.

News in Context:

• Com­pre­hen­sive research review iden­ti­fies most promis­ing inter­ven­tions to boost work­place men­tal health
• Three ways to pro­tect your men­tal health dur­ing –and after– COVID-19