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.
Our relationship with NIMHANS is led by Professor Tom Solomon, while Dr Lance Turtle at Liverpool leads the collaboration on brain infections with Dr Netravathi M.
The vital partnership has a focus on 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 and Sanjib Sinha.
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. This allows students from both countries to spend their first year in their home country, the middle 2 years overseas and the final year at home.
To date, the partnership has had a fantastic impact, generating £10 million in external grant funding, supporting 4 dual PhD studentships and 5 externally funded fellowships.
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