Mental Health Research for Innovation Centre (M-RIC)

The Mental Health Research for Innovation Centre (M-RIC) in Liverpool is one of the MHM’s two demonstrator sites.

Demonstrator Site Co-Directors

The team at M-RIC is made up of leading experts in the fields of clinical psychiatry, public health, research, data and innovation.

Main location of work

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Liverpool.

Site overview

M-RIC brings together academic researchers, healthcare providers, service users and industry to develop and evaluate new treatments and deliver more innovative services in mental healthcare.

The research is embedded in one of the UK’s largest NHS mental health and community services providers, shortening the time it takes to translate research into real benefits for local communities.

M-RIC is focussing its expertise upon trialling new drugs and novel uses of existing drugs as well as harnessing data science and new digital therapies such as apps and artificial intelligence to reimagine the way in which mental ill health is treated.

M-RIC has established a trusted (secure) research environment, created by the University of Liverpool and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust in collaboration with a major global technology infrastructure organisation. It gives researchers access to a full mental health data set that can be augmented by data held by different organisations across the city region.

Why the work is important

Liverpool also has one of the UK’s highest levels of social and economic disadvantage and poor mental health. Mental health service users in Liverpool live on average 20 years less than those in the rest of the UK. Despite this, mental health has gone under-funded and under-researched in city regions like Liverpool, which need it most.

M-RIC is tackling this historic inequality head on and turning the tide for its community. The award of £10.5m provides a landmark opportunity to ensure that people from Liverpool City region can access mental health research and innovative, high-quality care quicker and closer to home.

Aim

M-RIC aims to improve mental healthcare through groundbreaking research embedded in NHS services. This involves health professionals, researchers, industry partners, service users and carers working together to develop and deliver innovations in care that people need and want using data, new digital technologies, clinical trials, discovery science and service improvements.  

M-RIC also aims to improve healthcare for all patients and service users by making Liverpool a world leader in joined-up mental health discovery science.

Planned work packages

M-RIC’s programme of work covers six key research areas and focuses on developing better treatments and tackling inequalities in mental healthcare.

• M-RIC access to data
• Mental health avatar
• Mood disorder care innovations
• Child and adolescent digital mental health
• Neuroimmune therapeutics for psychosis
• Population mental health

Patient and public involvement, engagement, and participation (PPIEP)

M-RIC has a dedicated team who bring together service users, carers, members of the public, researchers and healthcare professionals to work side-by-side to shape and inform research plans.

The video below from M-RIC’s Co-Directors, patient and public involvement and engagement team and public advisors showcases how service user and carer involvement is at the heart of M-RIC’s research.

Increasing research capacity

Mersey Care and the University of Liverpool’s strategic alliance, formed in 2022, is growing capacity in mental health as part of the NIHR Mental Health Translational Research Collaboration (MH-TRC) and the M-RIC infrastructure. With the support of the Mental Health Mission, a world-first ‘mental health learning system’ is being developed accelerating the delivery of new medicines and digital therapies, whilst driving continuous improvement of mental health outcomes.