Mental Health Data Prize-Africa 2024 RFP
Announcement at glance
The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), in collaboration with Wellcome, is launching the Mental Health Data Prize-Africa to foster transformative change in understanding anxiety, depression, and psychosis across Africa. This initiative seeks to fill critical knowledge gaps by awarding up to ten prizes of £200,000 each, alongside one year of funding. It invites innovators, researchers, and start-ups to collaborate on developing data-driven insights and scalable digital tools to enhance understanding of these mental health issues in the African context.
The prize aims to gather a diverse group of African participants who will engage in multidisciplinary projects using existing data to devise new solutions for diagnosing and treating anxiety, depression, and psychosis. These projects will contribute to understanding effective prevention, treatment, and management strategies, addressing the needs of those experiencing these conditions.
We encourage mental health researchers and scientists across Africa to leverage existing data to explore research questions related to these three conditions and to enhance understanding of their progression within the continent. The funding will support multidisciplinary approaches, including data science and implementation research, to accelerate targeted and sustainable mental health interventions. The focus will be on:
We encourage mental health researchers and scientists across Africa to leverage existing data to explore research questions related to these three conditions and to enhance understanding of their progression within the continent. The funding will support multidisciplinary approaches, including data science and implementation research, to accelerate targeted and sustainable mental health interventions. The focus will be on:
- Understanding complex systems, including social and structural determinants of mental health, to identify more targeted prevention, treatment, and care interventions.
- Evaluating the implementation of evidence-based, data-driven solutions.
- Ensuring meaningful community and partner engagement at every project stage.
The overarching goal of the Mental Health Data Prize-Africa is to produce scalable solutions that support mental health research and generate data-driven insights tailored to the priorities of the African population, while building data capacity on the continent.
Specific objectives include:
- Supporting trustworthy data science and transforming mental health research to address challenges related to anxiety, depression, and/or psychosis in Africa through collaboration.
- Creating tangible, scalable data-driven tools to enhance understanding and interventions for mental health in Africa.
- Developing insights that improve diagnosis, treatment, and care in mental health, facilitating decision support for clinicians, front line health workers, and policymakers.
Scope of work
Projects likely to contribute to making a difference in preventing, treating, or managing ongoing anxiety, depression, and psychosis in Africa will be funded. Successful projects will be those that explore existing datasets to help answer the research question. Below are the types of research designs or tools that will be considered in the scope of the data prize.
I. Tools to perform data analysis, for example, a tool that can identify clusters of individuals who respond to specific interventions or a tool that determines which factors can predict relapses for anxiety, depression and/or psychosis.
II.Tools used to replicate data analysis, by making available the mechanism by which data is translated into research insights, for example, a new application of a machine learning algorithm that can be used on other datasets.
III. Tools that share the insights from data analysis, in a format accessible and digestible for multiple audiences. for example, a triaging tool for researchers that can highlight the components that work for different groups.
IV.Tools that facilitate data analysis by addressing barriers to conducting research, for example, tools that support data cleaning and manipulation or automatically extract relevant data from longitudinal datasets.
V. Tools or data-driven insights that can facilitate our understanding of causal mechanisms underpinning effective interventions for anxiety, depression, and/ or psychosis to inform the development of new and improved early interventions.
V. Tools or data-driven insights that can facilitate our understanding of causal mechanisms underpinning effective interventions for anxiety, depression, and/ or psychosis to inform the development of new and improved early interventions.
- What works, for who, and why in African settings (diagnosis,therapeutics,and management).
- Impacts on the effectiveness of the interventions.
- Identification and or validation of markers that can predict response to interventions.
VI. Any data analysis that can generate data-driven insights tailoring mental health diagnosis, treatment and care and facilitate decision support among key users such as clinicians, front-line health workers and decision-makers in Africa.
Tools considered out of scope would be:
VII. Any research design that aims to carry out primary data collection, discovery, or translation research and or feasibility or piloting studies.
Thematic areas
Any research that investigates the following thematic areas will be considered.
A. Generating data driven-insights that help us understand the causal mechanisms underpinning effective interventions for anxiety, depression, and psychosis to inform the development of new and improved early interventions.
- What works, for who, and why in Africa (diagnosis,therapeutics, and management).
- Impacts on the effectiveness of the interventions.
- Identification and or validation of markers that can predict response to interventions.
B. Developing data drive digital solutions/ tools for data analysis and improving mental health metrics by
- Assisting data analysis, and interpretation of findings.
- Helping to visualize and make sense of data.
- Sharing insights from research.
- Improving standardization and measures of anxiety, depression, and/or psychosis.
- Implementation sciences such as cost-effectiveness of interventions
While APHRC will share the data, sources, and accessibility information with the team (based on the scoping review), we would also strongly encourage research teams to propose their datasets so long as they meet the following criteria:
- Must utilize datasets reflecting African contexts and diverse age groups.
- Participated in ethics training that will be offered by either APHRC or through freely accessible online modules e.g. TRREE, NIH PHRP, etc.
- Datasets can be observational and experimental, preferably longitudinal which allows temporal effects.
- Datasets must include data from at least one age-appropriate measure of anxiety, depression and/or psychosis (or their symptoms), from participants across several waves of data collection (if applicable).
- Datasets must include data suitable for exploring what works to prevent, predict, treat, and care for anxiety, depression and/or psychosis in Africa.
Who can apply?
This mental health data prize aims to build multidisciplinary researchers and data communities in Africa by bringing together people with mental health research backgrounds and data science expertise. Any discipline that uses mental health thematic areas and conducts rigorous studies or analysis using observational, experimental design or implementation science can be considered.
Eligibility criteria
Eligibility criteria
- This initiative is open to lead applicants based in Africa (including academic institutions, non- profit organizations working on mental health, government agencies and research institutions) and may collaborate with other countries.
- This Request for Proposal (RFP) is open to researchers at any career stage. But we strongly encourage applications led by early- and mid-career investigators.
- Applicants must have the experience needed to drive and lead a research program addressing the thematic area(s) of interest.
- Researchers may submit only one application as a lead applicant through this RFP.
- Researchers may participate as co-applicants or collaborators on multiple applications.
- We encourage applications involving projects led by women.
Lead applicants must be individuals based in Africa and must have a permanent, open-ended, or long-term rolling contract with their institutions, or the guarantee of one for the full duration of the award (12 months).
Lead applicant organizations should be either:
- An institution of higher learning (usually university).
- A research institute.
- A non-academic healthcare organization or private institution such as a consulting firm.
- A not-for-profit organization, or an institution that works in hospital and clinic settings.
- A data or technology startup.
Co-applicants can be at any career stage and based anywhere in the world and can also be non- African citizen, or self-employed, e.g., freelance.
Co-applicants organizations should be either:
· Higher education institutions or private institutions of higher education.
· Research institute.
· Non-academic healthcare organizations or private institutions such as consulting firms.
· Not-for-profit organizations or faith-based or community-based organizations.
· Commercial organization.
· Freelancers – such as data scientists.
· Data or technology start-up
Please note that:
· All applicants must agree to the both APHRC's and Wellcome Trust’s standard grant conditions
· Individual application is not allowed.
· Foreign-based institutions (institutions based outside of Africa) cannot be lead applicants.
· Proposals can include institutions in high-income countries (HICs) or other LMICs but the proposals must demonstrate that at least 80% of the funding is going to African institutions.
· Researchers may participate as applicants or collaborators on multiple applications but may only submit one application as lead applicants.
· Research teams should include data scientists, people with lived experiences and decision- makers as co-applicants/collaborators where relevant.
Number of awards, level of funding and duration
We will offer up to 10 awards over the 12 months. An individual award may not exceed £200,000 including direct and indirect costs. The indirect (overhead) costs shall not exceed 10 per cent.
Selection panel
Applications will be reviewed in three stages by the selection panel, which will be organized to ensure geographical representation. Each proposal will be sent to three independent external reviewers after passing eligibility and or feasibility criteria. The selection panel will include experts in data ethics, data scientists, public health or epidemiologists, mental health experts, the APHRC Mental Health Steering Committee, people with lived experience advisors, anthropologists and the Wellcome team.
Notice of award
If the application is considered for funding, APHRC will carry out due diligence before awarding the contract. Once approved, finalists will receive a Notice of Award (NoA). Recipients will be required to comply with all Wellcome and APHRC funding guidelines and terms and conditions .
How to apply ?
After reviewing our Mental Health Data Prize guidelines and reading the key information on this page, we encourage applicants to follow the steps below.
Step 1. Please read our Application Instructions (link) for this call. It will help you understand what to include in your application. You can also view our recent webinar on the Application Guide.
Step 2. Complete your application using the following link .
NB. We do not also accept application via email.
Step 1. Please read our Application Instructions (link) for this call. It will help you understand what to include in your application. You can also view our recent webinar on the Application Guide.
Step 2. Complete your application using the following link .
NB. We do not also accept application via email.
Multidiciplinary approach
The prize seeks formation of multidisciplinary team to understand the three mental health conditions across Africa. The team may comprise different skills and background from different professions including mental health experts, data scientist, economist, public health, psychologist/sociologists, policy makers and lived experience experts.
As engaging LE is a mandatory for this call, we highly encourage the research team to think the best approaches for collaboration with LE experts in mental health research or their project. Applicants should demonstrate clear plans for collaboration with lived experience experts in the governance, planning ,design , delivery and dissemination of the research not as a research participants. The expert must also be appropriately compensated or paid for their involvement.
As engaging LE is a mandatory for this call, we highly encourage the research team to think the best approaches for collaboration with LE experts in mental health research or their project. Applicants should demonstrate clear plans for collaboration with lived experience experts in the governance, planning ,design , delivery and dissemination of the research not as a research participants. The expert must also be appropriately compensated or paid for their involvement.
In this context, lived experience is a unique form of knowledge, insight, and expertise, that comes from having experience of mental health challenges. By using the term ‘people with lived experience’ or ‘lived experience experts’, we are referring to people who self-identify as having experienced anxiety, depression, and/or psychosis (broadly defined), either in the past or currently, and they do not need to have received a diagnosis from a professional medical practitioner.”
Data protection and safeguarding
We encourage applicants to comply with Data Protection Act which requires that data is collected and used fairly, stored safely and not processed unlawfully. As part of the evaluation, we will also check the data protection and safeguarding principles and policies that teams have put in place to ensure the ethical use of any data they use. Prize teams must detail in their application the provisions they will have in place to ensure that their research question and use and any sharing of the data aligns with the provenance of the data and the legitimate basis for its collection. In all instances, organizational data protection policies for the lead applicant institution must be included as an attachment to proposals to allow for a robust assessment of the safeguarding procedures applied to the proposed dataset/s.
In general, applicants should follow the guiding principles of data protection which include but not limited to:
In general, applicants should follow the guiding principles of data protection which include but not limited to:
- Personal data must be processed in a lawful, fair, and transparent manner, with clear communication to data subjects about how their data is being used.
- Personal data can be processed only for the purpose that was defined before the data was collected. Personal data shall be obtained for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes, and shall not subsequently be processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes. Subsequent changes to the purpose are only possible to a limited extent and require justification. However, further data processing for statistical, scientific, and historical purposes shall be considered compatible with the initial purposes of the data collection, if it is not used to take decisions concerning the data subjects.
- Processing of personal data must have received the consent of the data subject or must meet one of the following conditions: compliance with any legal obligation to which APHRC is subject; the protection of the data subject’s life; the performance of a public service mission entrusted to APHRC. Personal data is subject to data secrecy. It must be treated as confidential on a personal level and secured with suitable organizational and technical measures to prevent unauthorized access, illegal processing, or distribution, as well as accidental loss, modification, or destruction.
- Personal data on file must be correct, complete, and – if necessary – kept up to date. Suitable steps must be taken to ensure that inaccurate or incomplete data are deleted, corrected, supplemented, or updated.
Furthermore, both APHRC and Wellcome are committed to ensuring that anybody that meets Wellcome or APHRC or its work is safe and protected from abuse and maltreatment of any kind. These include preventing and addressing any sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment of research participants, communities, and research staff, plus any broader forms of violence, exploitation and abuse relevant to research such as bullying, psychological abuse and/or physical violence. We are also committed to the digital safeguarding of personal information we collect, store, and use from grant applicants, grant holders, grant participants, staff employed through grants and external reviewers and advisors (e.g. peer reviewers and committee members) to award and manage grants and monitoring, evaluating, researching, and learning about what funds and how we fund it.
Open science
Both APHRC and Wellcome are committed to the open conduct of mental health research, and we invite prizewinners to follow and, where possible, advance methods and ways of working that facilitate community-led research. This includes sharing research findings and results, and collaborating on data science challenges specific to the analysis of existing datasets. Teams bringing their data must be prepared to share their insights, along with relevant data, in line with Wellcome's open access policy. When applying, all teams must ensure that they provide the following information about the data they will use
- The provenance of the data.
- Data fields that will be used for research.
- A cohort of study members will be included in the research.
- A time frame of study data that will be included in the research.
- An outline of why the chosen data is appropriate for addressing the research question.
- Approval to access the data from the relevant data controller, if required
- Confirmation that the use of the data aligns with the legitimate basis for its collection and use.
- Organizational data protection policies for safeguarding all data.
- An outline of how the project will comply with local privacy laws and, where relevant, access protocols for restricted datasets.
- Mitigations against any risks that research outputs may be misused for harmful purposes.
- Steps that will be taken to make research outputs publicly available, including: Analytical dataset; Source code for analysis and digital tools, along with sufficient data to enable others to understand, test, run and re-use these; Research papers.
Where the data are concerned, we would expect all teams to follow these principles:
- Where relevant, appropriate and privacy-preserving, analytical datasets, along with variables created and transformed during research, should be made publicly available.
- All source code (for research and tool development) must be licensed under an OSIcompliant license and must be hosted on a freely available and publicly accessible collaboration repository, such as GitHub, GitLab or BitBucket.
- If any software (including any software tool) depends on or processes data then sufficient data must be made freely available to enable third parties to understand, test, run, and reuse the relevant software. This could be a small subset of data embedded into the code repository or a link to data on a publicly accessible repository.
- Publications resulting from prize research should be published in open access journals, wherever possible.
Values and principles
APHRC’s mental health data prize project aims to build a more diverse and inclusive mental health science community, underpinned by a shared focus on finding new solutions. We value the following guiding principles and values.
- Collaboration: We highly encourage interdisciplinary research design for mental health science and solutions. Any research designed by bringing researchers from different disciplines to collaborate on the same issue ultimately contributes to our understanding of mental health conditions in Africa.
- Inclusivity and representation: Given the geographic diversity of the African region, researchers from all regions will be adequately represented to help make mental health science more diverse and inclusive. We strongly value involvement of community engagement especially those who seek input from people with lived experience of mental health problems.
- Transparency: The objectives, criteria, judging process, and funding allocation will be transparent. All communications and ongoing activities within this mental health data prize will be public, selection panel and criteria are designed to be objective and managed in accordance with this guideline.
- Respect: We create an environment of respect based on trust, confidence, and excellence by fostering cooperation and consideration of diverse perspectives. Respect is our duty to show high regard for ourselves, others, and the resources entrusted to us.
- Fairness: We believe our decisions are impartial and objective. Our conduct must be free from competing self-interest, prejudice, and favoritism. We constantly reexamine our impartiality and objectivity, taking corrective action as appropriate.
- Honesty: We earnestly seek to understand the truth and we encourage truthful, timely and accurate communications and conduct.
- Responsiveness: We value strong and timely communication with all interested applicants.
- Expert evaluation/objectivity: We will require scientific expertise in the review panel be suitable for evaluating the scientific merits and its potential impact. As appropriate, APHRC will invite reviewers to encompass broad and diverse scientific views, as well as to assess specific aims and methodology. Evidence of a reviewer’s qualifications may include looking at publication records such as h-index, research funding history, other scientific achievements, and/or recommendations from colleagues in the field.We will also include representatives from lived experience experts to provide perspective from the experience or advocacy point of view. Close attention will be given to balance geographic representation and appointments of reviewers are made without discrimination on the basis of age, ethnicity, gender, disability, cultural, religious, or socioeconomic status. The scoring criterias are also objective and clear.
Confidentiality: We ensure that all reviewers understand their obligations to keep the content of the proposal confidential /private. The proposal shall not be shared, distributed or disclosed to any third party without prior written from APHRC or primary contact persons of the project.
In addition, we encourage prize participants to follow the following rules and principles.
Ethical considerations and data privacy in the design and implementation of projects and embracing data privacy.
Considerations for transparency, integrity, and accountability in the key processes.
Evidence-based approaches by drawing on established research and best practices in the mental health field.
Innovation: adopting solutions that embrace creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
Impact: make a tangible difference in the MH of individuals and communities.
Collaboration: Encourage collaboration among participants, stakeholders, and partners.
PLE Community Engagement: affected by mental health challenges in the design, implementation, and evaluation.
Feedback and Learning: Embrace continuous learning and improvement.
Diversity and Inclusivity: Recognize accessible and welcoming to all, regardless of background.
Evidence-based approaches by drawing on established research and best practices in the mental health field.
Innovation: adopting solutions that embrace creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
Impact: make a tangible difference in the MH of individuals and communities.
Collaboration: Encourage collaboration among participants, stakeholders, and partners.
PLE Community Engagement: affected by mental health challenges in the design, implementation, and evaluation.
Feedback and Learning: Embrace continuous learning and improvement.
Diversity and Inclusivity: Recognize accessible and welcoming to all, regardless of background.
Key dates
Application Open: 1 July 2024, 10:00 am EAT
Close application submission: 7th August 2024, 11:59 pm EAT
Stage 1: Screening review: 31st August 2024
Stage 2: External Review : 5th -26th September 2024
Stage 3: Oral presentation : 1st - 11th October 2024
NB. We do not accept late applications.
Stage 1: Screening review: 31st August 2024
Stage 2: External Review : 5th -26th September 2024
Stage 3: Oral presentation : 1st - 11th October 2024
NB. We do not accept late applications.
Scope of work
Projects likely to contribute to making a difference in preventing, treating, or managing ongoing anxiety, depression, and psychosis in Africa will be funded. Successful projects will be those that explore existing datasets to help answer the research question. Below are the types of research designs or tools that will be considered in the scope of the data prize.
I. Tools to perform data analysis, for example, a tool that can identify clusters of individuals who respond to specific interventions or a tool that determines which factors can predict relapses for anxiety, depression and/or psychosis.
II.Tools used to replicate data analysis, by making available the mechanism by which data is translated into research insights, for example, a new application of a machine learning algorithm that can be used on other datasets.
III. Tools that share the insights from data analysis, in a format accessible and digestible for multiple audiences. for example, a triaging tool for researchers that can highlight the components that work for different groups.
IV.Tools that facilitate data analysis by addressing barriers to conducting research, for example, tools that support data cleaning and manipulation or automatically extract relevant data from longitudinal datasets.
V. Tools or data-driven insights that can facilitate our understanding of causal mechanisms underpinning effective interventions for anxiety, depression, and/ or psychosis to inform the development of new and improved early interventions.
V. Tools or data-driven insights that can facilitate our understanding of causal mechanisms underpinning effective interventions for anxiety, depression, and/ or psychosis to inform the development of new and improved early interventions.
- What works, for who, and why in African settings (diagnosis,therapeutics,and management).
- Impacts on the effectiveness of the interventions.
- Identification and or validation of markers that can predict response to interventions.
VI. Any data analysis that can generate data-driven insights tailoring mental health diagnosis, treatment and care and facilitate decision support among key users such as clinicians, front-line health workers and decision-makers in Africa.
Tools considered out of scope would be:
VII. Any research design that aims to carry out primary data collection, discovery, or translation research and or feasibility or piloting studies.
Thematic areas
Any research that investigates the following thematic areas will be considered.
A. Generating data driven-insights that help us understand the causal mechanisms underpinning effective interventions for anxiety, depression, and psychosis to inform the development of new and improved early interventions.
- What works, for who, and why in Africa (diagnosis,therapeutics, and management).
- Impacts on the effectiveness of the interventions.
- Identification and or validation of markers that can predict response to interventions.
B. Developing data drive digital solutions/ tools for data analysis and improving mental health metrics by
- Assisting data analysis, and interpretation of findings.
- Helping to visualize and make sense of data.
- Sharing insights from research.
- Improving standardization and measures of anxiety, depression, and/or psychosis.
- Implementation sciences such as cost-effectiveness of interventions
While APHRC will share the data, sources, and accessibility information with the team (based on the scoping review), we would also strongly encourage research teams to propose their datasets so long as they meet the following criteria:
- Must utilize datasets reflecting African contexts and diverse age groups.
- Participated in ethics training that will be offered by either APHRC or through freely accessible online modules e.g. TRREE, NIH PHRP, etc.
- Datasets can be observational and experimental, preferably longitudinal which allows temporal effects.
- Datasets must include data from at least one age-appropriate measure of anxiety, depression and/or psychosis (or their symptoms), from participants across several waves of data collection (if applicable).
- Datasets must include data suitable for exploring what works to prevent, predict, treat, and care for anxiety, depression and/or psychosis in Africa.
Who can apply?
This mental health data prize aims to build multidisciplinary researchers and data communities in Africa by bringing together people with mental health research backgrounds and data science expertise. Any discipline that uses mental health thematic areas and conducts rigorous studies or analysis using observational, experimental design or implementation science can be considered.
Eligibility criteria
Eligibility criteria
- This initiative is open to lead applicants based in Africa (including academic institutions, non- profit organizations working on mental health, government agencies and research institutions) and may collaborate with other countries.
- This Request for Proposal (RFP) is open to researchers at any career stage. But we strongly encourage applications led by early- and mid-career investigators.
- Applicants must have the experience needed to drive and lead a research program addressing the thematic area(s) of interest.
- Researchers may submit only one application as a lead applicant through this RFP.
- Researchers may participate as co-applicants or collaborators on multiple applications.
- We encourage applications involving projects led by women.
Lead applicants must be individuals based in Africa and must have a permanent, open-ended, or long-term rolling contract with their institutions, or the guarantee of one for the full duration of the award (12 months).
Lead applicant organizations should be either:
- An institution of higher learning (usually university).
- A research institute.
- A non-academic healthcare organization or private institution such as a consulting firm.
- A not-for-profit organization, or an institution that works in hospital and clinic settings.
- A data or technology startup.
Co-applicants can be at any career stage and based anywhere in the world and can also be non- African citizen, or self-employed, e.g., freelance.
Co-applicants organizations should be either:
· Higher education institutions or private institutions of higher education.
· Research institute.
· Non-academic healthcare organizations or private institutions such as consulting firms.
· Not-for-profit organizations or faith-based or community-based organizations.
· Commercial organization.
· Freelancers – such as data scientists.
· Data or technology start-up
Please note that:
· All applicants must agree to the both APHRC's and Wellcome Trust’s standard grant conditions
· Individual application is not allowed.
· Foreign-based institutions (institutions based outside of Africa) cannot be lead applicants.
· Proposals can include institutions in high-income countries (HICs) or other LMICs but the proposals must demonstrate that at least 80% of the funding is going to African institutions.
· Researchers may participate as applicants or collaborators on multiple applications but may only submit one application as lead applicants.
· Research teams should include data scientists, people with lived experiences and decision- makers as co-applicants/collaborators where relevant.
Number of awards, level of funding and duration
We will offer up to 10 awards over the 12 months. An individual award may not exceed £200,000 including direct and indirect costs. The indirect (overhead) costs shall not exceed 10 per cent.
Selection panel
Applications will be reviewed in three stages by the selection panel, which will be organized to ensure geographical representation. Each proposal will be sent to three independent external reviewers after passing eligibility and or feasibility criteria. The selection panel will include experts in data ethics, data scientists, public health or epidemiologists, mental health experts, the APHRC Mental Health Steering Committee, people with lived experience advisors, anthropologists and the Wellcome team.
Notice of award
If the application is considered for funding, APHRC will carry out due diligence before awarding the contract. Once approved, finalists will receive a Notice of Award (NoA). Recipients will be required to comply with all Wellcome and APHRC funding guidelines and terms and conditions .
How to apply ?
After reviewing our Mental Health Data Prize guidelines and reading the key information on this page, we encourage applicants to follow the steps below.
Step 1. Please read our Application Instructions (link) for this call. It will help you understand what to include in your application. You can also view our recent webinar on the Application Guide.
Step 2. Complete your application using the following link .
NB. We do not also accept application via email.
Step 1. Please read our Application Instructions (link) for this call. It will help you understand what to include in your application. You can also view our recent webinar on the Application Guide.
Step 2. Complete your application using the following link .
NB. We do not also accept application via email.
Multidiciplinary approach
The prize seeks formation of multidisciplinary team to understand the three mental health conditions across Africa. The team may comprise different skills and background from different professions including mental health experts, data scientist, economist, public health, psychologist/sociologists, policy makers and lived experience experts.
As engaging LE is a mandatory for this call, we highly encourage the research team to think the best approaches for collaboration with LE experts in mental health research or their project. Applicants should demonstrate clear plans for collaboration with lived experience experts in the governance, planning ,design , delivery and dissemination of the research not as a research participants. The expert must also be appropriately compensated or paid for their involvement.
As engaging LE is a mandatory for this call, we highly encourage the research team to think the best approaches for collaboration with LE experts in mental health research or their project. Applicants should demonstrate clear plans for collaboration with lived experience experts in the governance, planning ,design , delivery and dissemination of the research not as a research participants. The expert must also be appropriately compensated or paid for their involvement.
In this context, lived experience is a unique form of knowledge, insight, and expertise, that comes from having experience of mental health challenges. By using the term ‘people with lived experience’ or ‘lived experience experts’, we are referring to people who self-identify as having experienced anxiety, depression, and/or psychosis (broadly defined), either in the past or currently, and they do not need to have received a diagnosis from a professional medical practitioner.”
Data protection and safeguarding
We encourage applicants to comply with Data Protection Act which requires that data is collected and used fairly, stored safely and not processed unlawfully. As part of the evaluation, we will also check the data protection and safeguarding principles and policies that teams have put in place to ensure the ethical use of any data they use. Prize teams must detail in their application the provisions they will have in place to ensure that their research question and use and any sharing of the data aligns with the provenance of the data and the legitimate basis for its collection. In all instances, organizational data protection policies for the lead applicant institution must be included as an attachment to proposals to allow for a robust assessment of the safeguarding procedures applied to the proposed dataset/s.
In general, applicants should follow the guiding principles of data protection which include but not limited to:
In general, applicants should follow the guiding principles of data protection which include but not limited to:
- Personal data must be processed in a lawful, fair, and transparent manner, with clear communication to data subjects about how their data is being used.
- Personal data can be processed only for the purpose that was defined before the data was collected. Personal data shall be obtained for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes, and shall not subsequently be processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes. Subsequent changes to the purpose are only possible to a limited extent and require justification. However, further data processing for statistical, scientific, and historical purposes shall be considered compatible with the initial purposes of the data collection, if it is not used to take decisions concerning the data subjects.
- Processing of personal data must have received the consent of the data subject or must meet one of the following conditions: compliance with any legal obligation to which APHRC is subject; the protection of the data subject’s life; the performance of a public service mission entrusted to APHRC. Personal data is subject to data secrecy. It must be treated as confidential on a personal level and secured with suitable organizational and technical measures to prevent unauthorized access, illegal processing, or distribution, as well as accidental loss, modification, or destruction.
- Personal data on file must be correct, complete, and – if necessary – kept up to date. Suitable steps must be taken to ensure that inaccurate or incomplete data are deleted, corrected, supplemented, or updated.
Furthermore, both APHRC and Wellcome are committed to ensuring that anybody that meets Wellcome or APHRC or its work is safe and protected from abuse and maltreatment of any kind. These include preventing and addressing any sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment of research participants, communities, and research staff, plus any broader forms of violence, exploitation and abuse relevant to research such as bullying, psychological abuse and/or physical violence. We are also committed to the digital safeguarding of personal information we collect, store, and use from grant applicants, grant holders, grant participants, staff employed through grants and external reviewers and advisors (e.g. peer reviewers and committee members) to award and manage grants and monitoring, evaluating, researching, and learning about what funds and how we fund it.
Open science
Both APHRC and Wellcome are committed to the open conduct of mental health research, and we invite prizewinners to follow and, where possible, advance methods and ways of working that facilitate community-led research. This includes sharing research findings and results, and collaborating on data science challenges specific to the analysis of existing datasets. Teams bringing their data must be prepared to share their insights, along with relevant data, in line with Wellcome's open access policy. When applying, all teams must ensure that they provide the following information about the data they will use
- The provenance of the data.
- Data fields that will be used for research.
- A cohort of study members will be included in the research.
- A time frame of study data that will be included in the research.
- An outline of why the chosen data is appropriate for addressing the research question.
- Approval to access the data from the relevant data controller, if required
- Confirmation that the use of the data aligns with the legitimate basis for its collection and use.
- Organizational data protection policies for safeguarding all data.
- An outline of how the project will comply with local privacy laws and, where relevant, access protocols for restricted datasets.
- Mitigations against any risks that research outputs may be misused for harmful purposes.
- Steps that will be taken to make research outputs publicly available, including: Analytical dataset; Source code for analysis and digital tools, along with sufficient data to enable others to understand, test, run and re-use these; Research papers.
Where the data are concerned, we would expect all teams to follow these principles:
- Where relevant, appropriate and privacy-preserving, analytical datasets, along with variables created and transformed during research, should be made publicly available.
- All source code (for research and tool development) must be licensed under an OSIcompliant license and must be hosted on a freely available and publicly accessible collaboration repository, such as GitHub, GitLab or BitBucket.
- If any software (including any software tool) depends on or processes data then sufficient data must be made freely available to enable third parties to understand, test, run, and reuse the relevant software. This could be a small subset of data embedded into the code repository or a link to data on a publicly accessible repository.
- Publications resulting from prize research should be published in open access journals, wherever possible.
Values and principles
APHRC’s mental health data prize project aims to build a more diverse and inclusive mental health science community, underpinned by a shared focus on finding new solutions. We value the following guiding principles and values.
- Collaboration: We highly encourage interdisciplinary research design for mental health science and solutions. Any research designed by bringing researchers from different disciplines to collaborate on the same issue ultimately contributes to our understanding of mental health conditions in Africa.
- Inclusivity and representation: Given the geographic diversity of the African region, researchers from all regions will be adequately represented to help make mental health science more diverse and inclusive. We strongly value involvement of community engagement especially those who seek input from people with lived experience of mental health problems.
- Transparency: The objectives, criteria, judging process, and funding allocation will be transparent. All communications and ongoing activities within this mental health data prize will be public, selection panel and criteria are designed to be objective and managed in accordance with this guideline.
- Respect: We create an environment of respect based on trust, confidence, and excellence by fostering cooperation and consideration of diverse perspectives. Respect is our duty to show high regard for ourselves, others, and the resources entrusted to us.
- Fairness: We believe our decisions are impartial and objective. Our conduct must be free from competing self-interest, prejudice, and favoritism. We constantly reexamine our impartiality and objectivity, taking corrective action as appropriate.
- Honesty: We earnestly seek to understand the truth and we encourage truthful, timely and accurate communications and conduct.
- Responsiveness: We value strong and timely communication with all interested applicants.
- Expert evaluation/objectivity: We will require scientific expertise in the review panel be suitable for evaluating the scientific merits and its potential impact. As appropriate, APHRC will invite reviewers to encompass broad and diverse scientific views, as well as to assess specific aims and methodology. Evidence of a reviewer’s qualifications may include looking at publication records such as h-index, research funding history, other scientific achievements, and/or recommendations from colleagues in the field.We will also include representatives from lived experience experts to provide perspective from the experience or advocacy point of view. Close attention will be given to balance geographic representation and appointments of reviewers are made without discrimination on the basis of age, ethnicity, gender, disability, cultural, religious, or socioeconomic status. The scoring criterias are also objective and clear.
Confidentiality: We ensure that all reviewers understand their obligations to keep the content of the proposal confidential /private. The proposal shall not be shared, distributed or disclosed to any third party without prior written from APHRC or primary contact persons of the project.
In addition, we encourage prize participants to follow the following rules and principles.
Ethical considerations and data privacy in the design and implementation of projects and embracing data privacy.
Considerations for transparency, integrity, and accountability in the key processes.
Evidence-based approaches by drawing on established research and best practices in the mental health field.
Innovation: adopting solutions that embrace creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
Impact: make a tangible difference in the MH of individuals and communities.
Collaboration: Encourage collaboration among participants, stakeholders, and partners.
PLE Community Engagement: affected by mental health challenges in the design, implementation, and evaluation.
Feedback and Learning: Embrace continuous learning and improvement.
Diversity and Inclusivity: Recognize accessible and welcoming to all, regardless of background.
Evidence-based approaches by drawing on established research and best practices in the mental health field.
Innovation: adopting solutions that embrace creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
Impact: make a tangible difference in the MH of individuals and communities.
Collaboration: Encourage collaboration among participants, stakeholders, and partners.
PLE Community Engagement: affected by mental health challenges in the design, implementation, and evaluation.
Feedback and Learning: Embrace continuous learning and improvement.
Diversity and Inclusivity: Recognize accessible and welcoming to all, regardless of background.
Key dates
Application Open: 1 July 2024, 10:00 am EAT
Close application submission: 7th August 2024, 11:59 pm EAT
Stage 1: Screening review: 31st August 2024
Stage 2: External Review : 5th -26th September 2024
Stage 3: Oral presentation : 1st - 11th October 2024
NB. We do not accept late applications.
Stage 1: Screening review: 31st August 2024
Stage 2: External Review : 5th -26th September 2024
Stage 3: Oral presentation : 1st - 11th October 2024
NB. We do not accept late applications.