Mental-health research is too often invisible — it is time to change that

More than one billion people worldwide — around one person in seven — are estimated to live with a mental-health condition, according to the World Health Organization. Anxiety and depression alone affect close to 700 million, and each year around 700,000 individuals take their own lives, with more than half of those doing so before the age of 50.

You would think that the scale of the problem would merit a proportionate investment. But overall, such a response is lacking, meaning that many people with mental illness struggle to access the treatment, care or support that they need. Governments spend a median of only 2% of total health budgets on mental-health services — and much less in low- and middle-income countries. Severe shortages of trained mental-health professionals persist almost everywhere.

The picture for research funding is more mixed. After a period of sustained growth between 2014 and 2020, overall funding for mental-health research globally entered a steep decline, and by 2023 had fallen back to 2014 levels in real terms. That’s according to an analysis published last week by the International Alliance of Mental Health Research Funders in Washington DC (see go.nature.com/4wqefbt).

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Some 80% of all such funding comes from the United States, where the budget for the National Institute of Mental Health is under severe threat. By contrast, in the European Union, the United Kingdom and Australia, investment has been rising significantly. For instance, the global biomedical funder Wellcome in London spent £138 million (US$186 million) on mental health in 2025, according to its annual report (see go.nature.com/4v4xe55).

However, there is a common consensus that the research being done is not reaching those whose lives could be improved by it. One reason is a lack of awareness outside the field. Today sees the launch of an initiative intended to make a tangible, if modest, difference.

Wellcome, in partnership with Nature, is announcing a prize for mental-health research that we hope will boost recognition of the field and its potential to change the lives of people with mental illness. The Wellcome Prize for Mental Health Science with Nature will award US$1 million to an overall winner for developing innovative strategies, treatments or support mechanisms that deliver measurable improvements in mental-health outcomes. Three further finalists will receive $250,000 each. The winner will be announced next June.

The prize, the largest of its kind globally, will highlight mental-health interventions that are rigorous, evidence-based and at an early stage of research. Eligible submissions, which can be from anywhere in the world, will need to be supported by peer-reviewed research and demonstrate measurable benefit alongside the potential for wider adoption.

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‘Intervention’ is used deliberately broadly. A submission could involve a drug, digital platform, school-based programme, workplace initiative, policy reform or community-led model for mental-health services. The emphasis will be less on the category and more on outcome and impact: the winning intervention must demonstrate that the lives of people with mental-health conditions will improve.

This prize comes at a point of great creativity and ambition in mental-health research. Among treatment methods being investigated by researchers are non-invasive brain stimulation, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, software-based treatments (known as digital therapeutics) and real-time behavioural monitoring. These are taking place not only in hospitals and laboratories, but also in schools, workplaces and communities.

Submissions will be judged by an international panel drawn from academia, industry and policy, which includes editors of Nature, Nature Medicine and Nature Mental Health. All panel members are recognized for their expertise. Some have direct experience of mental-health challenges, too — something that is viewed as crucial to ensuring that research is of high quality and that psychological support is both sensitive and effective (Nature Rev. Psychol. 4, 143; 2025).

The award is but one step towards correcting an historical injustice. As an accompanying Editorial in Nature Mental Health says: “For much of modern history, mental health interventions were defined less by therapeutic intent or impact than by social control.” (Nature Mental Health 4, 689–690; 2026). People with serious mental illness were often regarded as dangerous and morally or mentally deficient, creating stigma and fear. They were treated as not fully human, leading to abhorrent medical practices from those who were meant to be caring for them.

A single prize will not by itself tackle the broader problem of mental-health research failing to reach the people it is intended to help. But prizes draw attention and create public narratives around progress in fields that might otherwise remain fragmented or invisible outside specialist circles. A prize of this scale therefore functions as more than recognition. It will make an argument that will reach those who need to hear it: that mental-health research is a domain of serious scientific discovery that produces medical advances of consequence.

We hope that all those who have responsibility, health-care policymakers especially, will use the knowledge gained through the prize to improve the lives of people living with mental-health conditions. That cannot be too much to ask.