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Structure and governance
Governance and executive functions
With core funding provided by Queensland Health, QCMHR is hosted by West Moreton Health and led by Interim Director, Professor Harvey Whiteford. The Director is supported by an Executive Leadership Group, comprising the Assistant Director, Senior Research Development Officer, and Assistant Business Manager.
Strategic guidance to the Centre is currently provided by the Business Unit Management Group comprised of the Executive Leadership Group members and Research Stream Leaders.
A new governance structure for QCMHR has been proposed as part of an organisational change process that we expect will be implemented in 2024.
The organisational structure is below:
Program structure
QCMHR's broader activities are structured underneath four foundational work programs addressing local, national and global research priorities, and mental health research capacity building.
Statewide program
Our statewide program of work is focused around improving mental health treatment and services around Queensland. QCMHR's current work in this space includes:
- Our Mental Health Evaluation Research Stream which undertakes priority evaluation projects across the state for Queensland Health, leading to beneficial outcomes for the health system, service providers, consumers and their families.
- Our Clinical Trials Unit, which supports clinician researchers from health services across Queensland to lead vital mental health clinical trials and intervention studies to improve treatment options and health outcomes for people living with mental disorders.
- Our partnership with the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health to: (i) collect new epidemiological data about the prevalence of mental disorders and preferences for treatment in urban First Nations’ communities in Queensland, (ii) analyse mental health service provision for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in South East Queensland, and (ii) evaluate First Nations mental health hubs established in partnership with Queensland Health.
National research program
Our national program of work has been made possible through our unique and highly successful decades-long partnership with The University of Queensland (UQ), and currently enables work conducted across our thirteen research streams. The partnership was first initiated out of a practical need to administer category one grants through funding agencies such as the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Since those early beginnings, our innovative UQ-QCMHR mental health academic research alliance has grown to encompass a range of activities of mutual benefit and enabled QCMHR to:
- become an internationally renowned for the quality of our research, with five Clarivate highly cited researchers currently employed in the centre,
- leverage Queensland Health investment in the centre to attract hundreds of millions of dollars in grant income,
- supervise scores of PhD students,
- support the research programs of 6 eminent Queensland Health senior clinicians,
- deliver numerous multi-million-dollar contracts for agencies seeking mental health research expertise, and
- garner the attention of philanthropic donors globally to support our work.
This partnership has allowed QCMHR researchers to apply for grant funding opportunities to undertake mental health research of national and global significance.
Global research program
Our global research program is currently focused around the epidemiology of mental disorders worldwide. The following initiatives are just some examples our global mental health research activities:
- Professor John McGrath’s receipt of the prestigious Niels Bohr Fellowship has enabled him to establish an innovative psychiatric epidemiology program at the National Centre for Register-based Research, Aarhus University in Denmark. The program consists of four inter-linked themes that aim to expand and strengthen the collaboration between the National Center for Register-based Research, The University of Queensland, Statens Serums Institute, and Harvard University. Read more.
- Associate Professor Holly Erskine's receipt of funding from Pivotal Ventures (an investment and incubation company created by Melinda Gates) via The University of Queensland in America, has enabled QCMHR to conduct National Adolescent Mental Health Surveys in Kenya, Vietnam and Indonesia. Read more.
- QCMHR's partnership with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, enables our Epidemiology and Global Burden of Disease Research Stream to collect new epidemiological data for mental disorders, analyse existing epidemiological data to understand the distribution of mental disorders, to quantify the fatal and non-fatal consequences of mental disorders, and to develop methodological frameworks to improve the precision at which we collect and analyse epidemiological data.
- QCMHR's ongoing contributions of mental health expertise to World Health Organisation publications and the World Mental Health survey.
Mental health workforce capacity building program
In line with state and national priorities to raise, sustain and train a skilled mental health workforce, QCMHR's mental health workforce capacity building program supports:
Undergraduate training
- Through our UQ partnership, QCMHR staff contribute to guest lectures and evidence based mental health course content for health and neuroscience programs at UQ.
- QCMHR hosts undergraduate students who are undertaking research placements from UQ and other universities (subject to agreements being in place).
Postgraduate research training
- QCMHR researchers are currently supervising more than 40 UQ PhD students, many of whom are mental health clinicians working in our hospital and health services.
- QCMHR clinician researchers teach into the medical program through our ties with UQ. Highlights include the development of “Suicide and Violence Risk Assessment and Management” and “Mental Health Impacts of Trauma” Workshops for medical students, and a training module on Ethics of Involuntary Treatment.
Psychiatry registrar and psychologist research training
- QCMHR hosts social work, psychology and other allied health graduate students as part of the allied health graduate program within West Moreton Health.
- QCMHR researchers lecture Queensland psychiatry registrars on the neurobiology of schizophrenia and neurochemistry of antipsychotic drug use.
- QCMHR has partnered with West Moreton Health to support allied health clinicians to expand their research experience and contribute to QCMHR research projects.
- QCMHR and WMH hosted the first psychiatry research registrar in South East Queensland, a successful initiative that was then rolled out in Metro North Health and Metro South Health.
- QCMHR clinician-researcher established the RANZCP Forensic Training programme.
Professional education
- QCMHR staff designed the online training modules for the National Mental Health Service Planning Framework, and continue to support mental health service planners around Australia to use the planning tool.
- A QCMHR clinician-researcher developed a workshop on Emergency Mental Health Care for General Practitioners accredited by the RACGP.
- QCMHR researchers developed a package of co-designed video resources to train front line police, paramedics and mental health staff on how to manage people in suicidal crisis.
- Our mental health evaluation research stream makes recommendations to Queensland Health about training needs to improve quality, delivery, and effectiveness of mental health services.
