Peer Research Academy
What is the Peer Research Academy?
A pioneering new initiative, the Institute of Mental Health Peer Research Academy, has been commissioned by the Wellcome Trust to support the development of mental health peer research as an inclusive, influential and health-affirming identity/role.
The Academy opened on 1 September 2025 and will operate initially until March 2028. It offer support for mental health, neurodivergence and substance use researchers with lived or living experience in those areas, including grants, training, a conference in September 2027 and networking/community-building opportunities. It will also investigate how to create healthy, sustainable environments for peer/lived experience researchers and offer support for people who employ, or plan to employ, researchers with lived experience.
The Academy is being run by researchers with lived experience from the University of Nottingham, all current or former members of the Recovery Research Team. It will be delivered in partnership with the Habitus Collective and Intentional Peer Support, and supported by a panel of advisers with experiential knowledge of enabling and inhabiting peer research. The panel includes individual peer researchers and representatives of the McPin Foundation, Nottingham Trent University, the University of Nottingham, and the Institute of Mental Health.
You can contact the Academy at peer@nottingham.ac.uk. Please get in touch if you would like to:
- receive updates about the support and other activities on offer
- find out more about costing the Academy’s peer research support package into your funding proposals
- enquire about conducting research about peer research (e.g. through securing PhD funding for collaborative work with the IMH Peer Research Academy)
We’d also like to hear from anyone who:
- organises networks of peer researchers
- has identified knowledge on barriers and opportunities to peer research success
- is interested in reviewing their organisation’s processes relevant to peer research.