OTTAWA — Today, The Royal announced the biggest individual donation in its history — $6 million from an anonymous donor, earmarked to accelerate the future of mental health research and discovery.
This donation gives The Royal the opportunity to support some of the most creative, pioneering young minds looking to focus their passion on innovative mental health research. It funds a new research incubator called Emerging Researchers in Mental Health (e-RIMh) through The Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR), affiliated with the University of Ottawa.
“Right now with mental illness, we are where we were with heart disease and diabetes more than 100 years ago,” says Dr. Zul Merali, former President and CEO of the IMHR. “We need curiosity-driven, innovative researchers — the best and brightest young minds — eager to advance the field of mental health research.”
The program is the first of its kind in Canadian mental health research. It’s looking for five of the best and brightest early-career researchers eager to make the next big discovery.
It’s a chance for these young researchers to put their careers into overdrive, while working in a supportive environment alongside experts in their field, with salary and grant support for up to five years.
The IMHR encourages applicants to propose highly original projects exploring out-of-the-box ideas that may have scant supporting evidence at the moment, but hold the potential to transform current thinking.
This means that e-RIMh is a chance to do work that may be difficult to get funded elsewhere, with financial and professional support and access to cutting-edge technology, including our new Brain Imaging Centre.
“The donor believes that curiosity drives innovation, and that mental health needs more of it,” says Nancy Stanton, Acting President and CEO of The Royal’s Foundation. “By fueling the careers of bright young minds willing to defy convention and explore new approaches, curiosity can lead to new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat mental illness.”
The IMHR’s five primary research priorities are depression, the brain–heart connection, stress and trauma, brain stimulation, and multimodal brain imaging, but it will also consider mental health research with
other foci.
Applicants must be within the first five years of completing a PhD or MD degree. The deadline to apply is April 30th. For more information, visit Emerging Research Innovators in Mental Health (eRIMh).
About The Royal
The Royal is one of Canada’s foremost mental health care, teaching and research hospitals. Its mandate is simple: to help more people living with mental illness into recovery faster. The Royal combines the delivery of specialized mental health care, advocacy, research and education to transform the lives of people with complex and treatment resistant mental illness. This includes our Operational Stress Injury (OSI) Clinic, which treats Canadian Forces, veterans and RCMP, and is the only such clinic within a specialized academic mental health centre. The Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research affiliated with the University of Ottawa, brings together leading clinicians, scientists and technology to investigate the brain circuitry linked to depression, posttraumatic stress disorder and suicide ideation.
For more information, please contact:
Sue Walton, Community Relations
Desk: 613-722-6521 ext. 6349
Cell: 613-857-9752
sue.walton@theroyal.ca