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National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience (NIMHANS)

The strategic partnership between the University of Liverpool and NIMHANS was established over 10 years ago, with a Memorandum of Understanding first signed in 2012.

NIMHANS is a multidisciplinary institute for patient care and academic research into mental health and neurosciences. It is one of India’s largest neurology centres and an institute of national importance. This prestige the Institute enjoys makes it a vitally important partner for the University of Liverpool.

The Memorandum of Understanding between the two organisations was extended for a further 5 years in 2017 and again in 2022. The NIMHANS partnership is supported by funding from the Pratishka Trust in India. The partnership seeks to address challenges related to brain infections, children’s mental health and brain conditions such as epilepsy. 

The partnership was initiated by Professor Tom Solomon with a focus on brain infections. This theme is now led by Professor Lance Turtle at Liverpool and Dr Netravathi at NIMHANs, while Professor Helen Sharp is the principal lead for the partnership on the Liverpool side. 

The partnership has extended its focus to maternal and child mental health, with collaborations on longitudinal studies being led at Liverpool by Professor Helen Sharp and by Professor Prabha Chandra at NIMHANS. Activity has also been extended to include neuroimaging, led by Professor Simon Keller at Liverpool and Professor Sanjib Sinha at NIMHANs, with a focus on improving the understanding of epilepsy.

Collaborative projects between the 2 institutions have been supported by Wellcome, Medical Research Council and the Gates Foundation. This work has had a sizeable impact on global healthcare in terms of treatment and management of serious conditions and infections such as Japanese Encephalitis, acute brain infections, epilepsy and neuro-inflammation. More than 200,000 lives have been saved since the inception of the partnership, showing just how important this collaboration is to the wider world.

Alongside the ongoing research, the partnership is strengthened by the Dual PhD programme, along with early career and senior research fellowship awards, designed to promote new collaborative research. The Dual PhD Programme enables students from both countries to spend their first year in their home country, 2 years overseas and the final year at home.

To date, the partnership has had a substantial impact, generating £10 million in external grant funding, supporting 7 dual PhD studentships and 5 externally funded fellowships.

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