The Wellcome UK Mental Health Data Prize UK
The Mental Health Data Prize – unlocking innovation in mental health science.
There is a wealth of data about mental health available that could be used to gain new insights but is not currently being accessed by researchers – this Prize is a solution to that problem.
The Mental Health Data Prize UK is an open challenge for teams with a bold idea for a new digital tool or application that uses existing mental health data in innovative ways.
It brings together people from academia and industry, offering funding, tailored support, and a vibrant learning community to help transform great ideas into scalable solutions that improve early intervention for anxiety, depression, and psychosis.
Delivered by Social Finance in partnership with Wellcome, the programme supports Wellcome’s mission to transform early intervention in mental health.
Winners of the first Mental Health Data Prize, which ran from 2022 to 2024, developed tools which are now being used both in mental health research and by policy makers.
Building on the success of the inaugural Mental Health Data Prize, we are thrilled to extend our partnership with Social Finance to support teams to develop digital tools utilising existing data. The Data Prize will foster multidisciplinary collaborations and robust, responsible data use in mental health research. We are excited to pave the way for a better understanding of how mental health problems develop, persist and resolve.
Dr Catherine Sebastian, Head of Evidence for Mental Health at Wellcome
What does the Data Prize offer to participants?
The Data Prize provides a combination of innovation funding and tailored support to set teams up for success in developing their tool.
Innovation funding
Six teams will be selected from shortlisted applications and will each receive up to £100,000 to develop and test their prototypes.
After nine months, three teams will be chosen to receive up to an additional £300,000 each to continue developing their tool or application for a further nine months.
Support to develop the tool or application
Including:
- Group workshops and expert surgeries.
- Team mentoring and tailored support.
- Workshops that guide meaningful integration of lived experience throughout the development process.
- Opportunities to showcase prototypes and gather peer and user feedback through ‘Show and Tell’ sessions.
- Opportunities for connection, collaboration and knowledge sharing with a diverse network of experts across mental health science and related fields.
Previous Wellcome Mental Health Data Prize Winners
Harmony – Ulster University
In simple terms, without the data prize, our tool (Harmony) wouldn’t exist. Beyond simply providing funds for the tool, there was a huge focus on skills development throughout the program which meant we were able to effectively develop the product and begin to build a solid user base.
Dr Eoin McElroy, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Ulster University (previous winner)
Harmony is a free-to-use AI tool for researchers to make better use of existing mental health questionnaire data, by bringing together different studies.
It was developed as a collaboration between Ulster University, University College London, the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria and Fast Data Science as part of the Wellcome Data Prize in Mental Health and is co-led by Dr Bettina Moltrecht at UCL and Dr Eoin McElroy at Ulster University.
For the Harmony team, the Data Prize enabled successful development of the tool and connection with key sector stakeholders. The Data Prize was a novel form of funding, compared to traditional research grants, that encouraged rapid development of a tangible tool and development opportunities for early career researchers.
The team: Eoin McElroy, Bettina Moltrecht, Thomas Wood, Mauricio Scopel Hoffmann, George B. Ploubidis.
Watch the video to find out more about how Harmony put their team together.
DigiCAT – Edinburgh University
There isn’t a lot of funding available that specifically supports digital tools for mental health science research and so it’s been a really good opportunity to realise our vision … And I can’t wait to see what people come up with, what exciting ideas for digital tools there are out there.
Prof Aja Murray„ Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh and Co-founder of DigiCAT, winner of Data Prize 2022–2024; member of the Expert Advisory Group for the Mental Health Data Prize 2026–2028
DigiCAT (Digital Counterfactual Analysis Tool) is a digital tool that analyses cause and effect in observational mental health data. This can accelerate progress in identifying potential intervention targets.
Beyond the Data Prize, the team has worked with the Department for Education through an Impact Acceleration Award, specifically with the School Exclusions Unit and the Serious Violence Unit, and upskilled individuals across the sector in insights gathered about what works, and does not work, in addressing mental health problems.
The team: Aja Murray, Marie Allitt, Ingrid Obsuth, Josiah King, Dan Mirman, Patrick Errington and Helen Wright.
Find out more about DigiCAT from Aja Murray below:
School Health Research Network (SHRN) – Cardiff University
The School Health Research Network’s (SHRN) school-level digital dashboard is a digital tool which that schools to analyse and interpret data about their school environment and pupil wellbeing. It empowers schools to use bespoke data to create environments that promote good mental and physical health.
The tool will be nationally rolled out to secondary schools in Wales to enable schools to have access to dashboards to identify needs of pupils. The team also undertook further research and an academic paper is due to be published soon. Alongside this, the team have had opportunities to share their experience and insights with researchers and practitioners in other countries.
The team: Jeremy Segrott, Hayley Reed, Frances Rice, Simon Murphy, Rhys Bevan-Jones, Yulia Shenderovich, Olga Eyre, Nicholas Page, Maria Boffey and Edna Ogada.
See an overview of the SHRN tool below:
Information for applicants
Please note, applications for the Wellcome Mental Health Data Prize UK 2026–2028 have now closed. We’ve included the documents for your reference
Applicant information pack
This contains all the information you need to know about the Data Prize including what sorts of tools we’re looking for, what datasets are eligible, evaluation criteria and key guidance.
Application documents
This includes a Budget Template and a PDF copy of the Application Form. NB this is for reference only, applications have closed
Supporting documents
This includes the Template Grant Agreement for Teams (including Team Member T&Cs), Submission Terms, and Eligible Expenditure Guidance.
Want to know more about the Data Prize?
If you’d like to receive newsletters about the progress of the Data Prize, please complete the form below.
And if you want get in touch directly, please email the team at dataprize@socialfinance.org.uk
The Wellcome Mental Health Data Prize Privacy Policy can be found here.