ARC East Midlands Theme Lead reappointed as NIHR Senior Investigator

Professor Richard Morriss has been reinstated as a Senior Investigator by the NIHR.

Senior Investigators are among the most prominent and prestigious researchers funded by the NIHR. As senior members of the NIHR Academy, they help guide research capacity development and enhance the career paths of NIHR researchers, including participating as mentors in the NIHR mentoring programme.

Professor Morriss is the ARC East Midlands Theme Lead for Mental Health and Well-being, which carries out research to improve the mental health and wellbeing of our population and to increase access to effective therapies and treatments.

He is a Professor of Psychiatry and Community Mental Health at the University of Nottingham and an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust. 

Speaking of his achievements, Professor Morriss said: “I am grateful for this award from NIHR which is in recognition for research by myself and a team in the East Midlands into mental health over a number of years. The team working with me have focussed on a wider range of mental health problems from basic research into digital mental health and neuromodulation for mood disorders in the Nottingham NIHR BRC through to applied research in NIHR ARC East Midlands and MindTech MTC. Some of these have led to benefits for patients such as group psychoeducation for bipolar disorder, specialist depression services and transcranial magnetic stimulation for treatment resistant depression.

"Now we are also focussing on improving the well-being of NHS staff. The award will help us to continue all this work and to support the next generation of clinical academic and non-clinical academic staff interested in coproduction with people who might use these interventions, finding out their pros and cons, and also seeing them through to translation when they provide better or alternative solutions for the health services here and  abroad."

Professor Morriss has been playing a crucial role in providing support to NHS staff affected by COVID-19 and beyond, including a brief gameplay intervention and UK's largest survey on mental health and wellbeing. 

He is also the Adult Mental Disorder Theme lead and Deputy Director of NIHR MindTech and In Vitro Collaboration, and Deputy Theme Lead for the Nottingham NIHR Biomedical Research Centre’s Mental Health and Technology Theme. 

Full details of all NIHR Senior Investigators are available in the NIHR Senior Investigators Directory, which is updated in April each year.

The NIHR ARC East Midlands Mental Health and Well-being Theme runs projects on primary care depression, children and adult mental health, dementia and on improving thee well-being of NHS and other public service staff.

Professor Morriss is also the co-Theme Lead for the Mental Health and Technology Theme in the Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre, leading on neuromodulation in depression and anxiety, and chief investigator of the BRIGhTMIND randomised controlled trial of personalised MRI theta burst stimulation versus standard reperitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in severe treatment resistant depression.

He is the Adult Mental Health Lead for NIHR MindTech MTC, a national organisation working with industry and other partners on digital approaches for mental health.