Suffolk Mind receives £25,000 in research funding from Open University competition

Earlier this year, the Open Societal Challenges Programme at The Open University (OU) ran a Challenge Us! competition open to UK Charities to find the most exciting research ideas tackling real-world problems.

We are delighted to announce that Suffolk Mind’s proposal: ‘Addressing low response rates and under-representation of individuals with poor mental health in research and evaluation’ has been chosen as one of the winning challenges and will receive a baseline of £25,000 in funding to cover the direct cost of this research.

Suffolk Mind’s Research Team will also be given the opportunity for one of its employees, trustees, or volunteers with the research team to have a paid internship with the OU to help build research capacity.

Our research

At Suffolk Mind we regularly conduct research and evaluation to ensure our mental health services are representative of population needs.

However, clients and respondents sometimes describe participating in research as a “commitment” or “pressure”, leaving them feeling they’re “letting people down” if they’re not mentally well enough to contribute.

We know these individuals are incredibly driven to share their experiences and insights to support others, but challenges engaging with research and evaluation mean their views are under-represented.

With the support and funding from this programme, we will be able to undertake research which allows us to better understand – and develop guidance around – these challenges so those with mental ill-health feel better supported to effectively engage with research and evaluation.

Stay tuned to find out more about what we get up to. Thank you so much to the OU for this amazing opportunity.