Generative AI for anxiety, depression and psychosis

This programme will fund fundamental research on using generative AI to improve the measurement or treatment of anxiety, depression and psychosis. Successful teams will research how to optimise generative models for mental health or how generative AI, mental health professionals and people affected by mental health issues can work together safely and efficiently.

Share this page Share with Email Share with LinkedIn Share with Bluesky Share with X Share with Facebook Skip to contents On this page Overview What is the programme? Who can apply Who can't apply Is your organisation right for this programme? Is your research right for this programme? What we offer How to apply for the accelerator stage How accelerator stage applications are assessed Application process timeline Contact us Back to top Print this page Overview Lead applicant career stage: Early-career researcher, Mid-career researcher, Established researcher Administering organisation location: Anywhere in the world (apart from mainland China) Funding amount:

Up to £3 million per award

Funding duration:

Up to 2 years. Participants will join an accelerator stage for the first 4 months, which is not a grant. Then, they will have the opportunity to apply for grant funding for up to 2 years.

Coapplicants: Required Upcoming application stage Calculating next key date… Application process timeline What is the programme?

The application process for this programme is in two phases: a four-month accelerator stage followed by a separate funding call. Only participants selected for the accelerator stage will be eligible to apply for the funding call.

Accelerator stage

The accelerator stage will support teams selected by Wellcome to conduct pilot studies to develop high-quality research proposals for the funding call. Wellcome will run the application and selection process for the accelerator and Neuromatch will run this accelerator stage on behalf of Wellcome.

The accelerator stage is not a grant; instead, the support will include:

access to upskilling workshops help to set up collaborations funds for the development of pilot studies

Find out more about what we offer in the accelerator phase.

Funding call

The funding call will open in August 2025, and only teams participating in the accelerator stage will be eligible to apply. To submit a proposal for funding, you must apply for the accelerator first and be selected.

Who can apply

We will only accept applications from teams, not individual researchers. To find a team to apply with or to recruit additional team members, you can use the matchmaking service offered by Neuromatch. This service will close on 14 April 2025.

The Team Show Lead Applicant Show Coapplicants Show Collaborators Show

Read about the different applicant roles at Wellcome.

If you’ve spent time away from research Career breaks, parental leave, sick leave

You can apply if you have spent time away from research (for example, for a career break, parental leave or long-term sick leave). We will take this into consideration when reviewing your application.

Retirement

For retired researchers, host organisations must provide space and resources for the duration of the award.

Working part-time

Lead applicants and coapplicants can be part-time. Part-time applicants should still be able to contribute sufficient time to the participate in the accelerator and deliver the proposed activities.

Their part-time work should be compatible with delivering the project successfully.

Who can't apply

You cannot apply to the accelerator or subsequent funding call if:

You are already an applicant (lead or coapplicant) on another application for the accelerator stage of the programme. You have already applied for or hold the maximum number of Wellcome awards for your career stage. Find out how many Wellcome awards you can apply for or hold at one time, depending on your career stage. You intend to carry out activities which involve the transfer of funds into mainland China. Is your organisation right for this programme?

If you are successful in the accelerator, the administering organisation will be responsible for submitting your final application for the funding call to Wellcome and managing the finances of the grant if it is awarded. Your organisation must be able to sign up to our grant conditions.

Where your administering organisation is based

The administering organisation can be based anywhere in the world, apart from mainland China.

The organisation can be a:

higher education institution research institute non-academic healthcare organisation not-for-profit or non-governmental research organisation

Commercial organisations are not eligible to apply as administering organisations for this call. However, coapplicants and collaborators can be based at commercial organisations.

Is your research right for this programme?

Generative AI has the potential to advance how we diagnose and treat mental health problems, and to improve measurement and evaluation within the mental health field from symptoms to risks and outcomes.

But the world’s leading generative models were not built for mental health. For example, current models aren’t as good as humans at taking into account all the different ways that mental health problems can manifest, like gestures, tone of voice and facial expressions. They also lack effective memory systems that would allow for multi-session interventions. There is a lack of high-quality benchmarking and evaluation methods and datasets relevant to mental health. And there is no established best practice for how generative models should interact with mental health professionals and end beneficiaries.

Mental health conditions in scope

This funding focuses on projects that investigate symptoms of anxiety, depression and psychotic disorders. This includes:

all types of anxiety and depressive disorders (including obsessive compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder) all forms of psychotic disorders (including schizophrenia, postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder)

We recognise that the current diagnostic categories are imperfect but removing all categories or creating new ones also presents difficulties. Whilst we do not specify any particular diagnostic or classification system, we expect applicants to use a framework and measurement approach that fits the aim of their study and to provide a clear rationale for doing so.

What your accelerator proposal must consider

Our Generative AI programme has two aims:

Aim 1: To create or improve models and computational approaches so that they can safely and effectively perform complex tasks to help address challenges in mental health measurement and intervention.

Aim 2: To produce evidence of how generative models can and/or should collaborate with mental health professionals and end beneficiaries.

Proposals must work towards one or both of these aims. They should do so in a way that leads to a positive impact on how we measure and/or treat anxiety, depression and/or psychosis.

Our aim is to lay the groundwork for large and positive impact of generative AI in mental health by funding the development of a new generation of mental-health-first generative models. Real-world deployment of generative-AI-powered solutions beyond the scope of this programme.

All proposals must also:

Have a plan for evaluating and/or validating model performance, including transparent evaluation of bias against particular groups. Select appropriate, relevant and performant language models. Have plans for monitoring and evaluating model output to appropriately mitigate risk if building solutions where models will interact directly with mental health professionals or end beneficiaries. Consider the ethics around their project, specifically how they can: maximise benefit and minimise harm fairly distribute benefits and harms respect and respond to the expressed needs of people with lived experience ensure transparency and accountability Use, as a minimum, one or more of our recommended common measures if collecting primary data. You may also collect data using any other measure(s).

Involve lived experience expertise of anxiety, depression and/or psychosis as relevant to the research topic. Lived experience expertise should be representative of the target population and demonstrate that the proposal aligns with the priorities of the communities the team intends to serve.

Lived experience involvement

Proposals must involve lived experience expertise. We recognise that there is a range of ways that research teams can involve and collaborate with lived experience experts including as coapplicants and collaborators.

We are open to any methods of involvement that teams choose, but lived experience experts must be involved in the most appropriate and ethical ways to inform multiple aspects and stages of the project.

Lived experience experts are not research participants and their input should not be lim