2023 has been a great year for the Incubator, and hopefully it hasn’t been too shabby for all you mental health researchers out there either? We are taking a little festive break here at the Incubator until the new year, so we thought to wrap up this year we would share a few of our favourite happenings from 2023.
Highlights of 2023
Applications for the 2023 cohort were highly competitive, with over 100 applications for 20 spots. We had an amazing group of early career mental health researchers on the programme this year, coming from all corners of the UK and a wide range of specialisms. The group kicked things off with an in person meeting in London, and had a second chance to meet each other and GROW alumni at our Great GROW Gathering in October – read more about that here.
The current cohort had their final meeting a few weeks ago and had great things to say about their experience, and they are already planning regular catchups to continue the peer support.
This year we ran our first webinar with advice specifically for developing a career as a postdoc mental health researcher. Over 125 people were watching it live online, and we had loads of engagement with our live Twitter stream (Check it out again here). The recording has been viewed by nearly 250 people and is available over on the NIHR Youtube channel if you fancy catching up on it, there really were some amazing tips and advice from the panelists.
Our mental health researchers community map is continuing to grow in membership. It is a great way to find other people who are working on a similar thing to you, working near you, or maybe have that grant that you are going after. Research is and should be a team sport and we hope by having the map we are helping to connect you to others working in mental health research.
We hope that even more people add themselves to it in 2024, and also add things like special interest research groups and peer support groups.
We had some great contributions from people in the form of guest blogs and case studies. Which was your favourite?
The Incubator is continuing! Setting up 2024
Last but certainly not least, we recently got the amazing news that the Incubator will continue into 2024 and beyond! And, not only are we going to be able to offer all the things we did this year, including news posts, career case studies, Twittering/X-ing and a full GROW cohort, but we have funding for even more! Amongst a whole range of activities which you can read about here, we will be including work with addiction researchers as part of GROW and also for internships/placements.
Thank You!
We couldn’t have done all we did this year without the input and support from all you wonderful mental health researchers, so Thank You!
We hope you have a lovely festive period whatever you may be up to. See you all in 2024!
What has been your highlight of 2023? What are you looking forward to in 2024?
Let us know over on Twitter/X @MHRIncubator