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.
Final date to submit questions for the FAQs
You can continue to submit questions through our email inbox (dataprize@socialfinance.org.uk) until 10 April 2026. We’ll publish the final version of our frequently asked questions (FAQs) on 17 April. You might also find it helpful to watch the video of our launch webinar at the end of this page.
Applications close
We’re using the Submit platform to manage our applications. Before you apply, please download and read the Applicant Information Pack and the documents included in the Application Documents and Supporting Documents, using the links further down the page.
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
The Data Prize provides a combination of innovation funding and tailored support to set teams up for success in developing their tool.
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.
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.
The Data Prize aims to contribute to building a thriving mental health science community, which brings together individuals from diverse backgrounds and disciplines.
We actively welcome applications from teams that include early career researchers and practitioners, and/or people with relevant skills and experience but who are not working in mental health.
We encourage applicants to form multidisciplinary teams that bring together the range of skills and experience needed to deliver their proposal. This is likely to include a combination of expertise such as:
• mental health research
• data science
• digital tool development
• lived experience
• mental health policy
• mental health practitioners
• specialists in areas such as data ethics, open science, and expertise relevant to sustaining and scaling data tools
Teams will be asked to name a lead applicant organisation which is able to receive the grant funding on behalf of the team. Lead applicant organisations:
Applicants will also be asked to detail all co-applicants involved in their team. Co-applicants:
All applicants must be able to sign up to a set of standard grant conditions which are included in the Supporting Documents.
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.
The team: Eoin McElroy, Bettina Moltrecht, Thomas Wood, Mauricio Scopel Hoffmann, George B. Ploubidis.
DigiCAT is a digital tool that analyses cause and effect in observational mental health data. This can accelerate progress in identifying potential intervention targets.
The team: Aja Murray, Marie Allitt, Ingrid Obsuth, Josiah King, Dan Mirman, Patrick Errington and Helen Wright.
SHRN is a digital dashboard that empowers schools to use bespoke data to create environments that promote good mental and physical health.
The team: Jeremy Segrott, Hayley Reed, Frances Rice, Simon Murphy, Rhys Bevan-Jones, Yulia Shenderovich, Olga Eyre, Nicholas Page, Maria Boffey and Edna Ogada.
Watch the video to find out more about how one of last year’s winners – Harmony – put their team together.
We are using a platform called Submit to manage applications. Before you start to complete the form, please make sure you have downloaded and read the Applicant Information Pack and the all documents included within the Application Documents and the Supporting Documents. They contain everything you need to know, including eligibility criteria, terms and conditions of submissions, template grant agreements and other important guidance and information.
Find the Data Prize application form hereThis 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, more detail on who can apply, evaluation criteria and key guidance.
This includes a Budget Template and a PDF copy of the Application Form. NB this is for reference only. All applications must be made via the Submit portal.
This includes the Template Grant Agreement for Teams (including Team Member T&Cs), Submission Terms, and Eligible Expenditure Guidance.
If you’d like to receive newsletters about the Data Prize, including event sign-up links, 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.
The Launch Webinar was held on 24 February 2026, where we covered key information for making an application to the Data Prize. Watch the recording below for a recap.
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
