Education, policy and clinical care in mental health: an update on the activities of <scp>WPA</scp> Collaborating Centres

In 2016, the WPA President and Executive Committee appointed seven sites as WPA Collaborating Centres, with the aims to: a) collect and disseminate information on mental health; b) provide training and links to clinical and research centres; c) support capacity building at country or regional level; d) conduct and coordinate educational and research activities with the support of the WPA1. The Centres have been renewed in 20212, aiming to support the implementation of the WPA Action Plan 2020-20233-5, and to build a global alliance for better mental health. In this period, the network of the WPA Collaborating Centres has been extended. It includes now nine sites in eight different countries: the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India; the Department of Psychiatry of the Chinese University of Hong Kong; the Africa Mental Health Research and Training Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya; the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, South Africa; the Okasha Institute of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt; the Department of Psychiatry and Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, UK; the Department of Psychiatry, University of Campania “L. Vanvitelli”, Naples, Italy; the Department of Psychiatry at Sidra Medicine in Doha, Qatar; and the Department of Psychiatry, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh, India. The Centres have been selected on the basis of the following criteria: a) high scientific reputation at national and international levels; b) eminent status in the country; c) high quality of academic and research leadership; d) stability in terms of achievements, staff and resources; e) willingness to contribute to the implementation of the WPA Action Plans; f) appropriate technical expertise. The UK site acts as the coordinating centre, organizing quarterly business meetings. In 2021, the WPA Collaborating Centres developed a Work Plan, aiming to promote best practice in clinical work, teaching, training, research and policy development2. The Plan has been implemented by sharing resources, working together on educational initiatives (e.g., webinars, essay prizes for medical students and trainee psychiatrists), promoting and conducting research (e.g., on adolescents at the Collaborating Centres in Kenya, India and UK), providing opportunities to promote WPA activities, and supporting early career researchers, trainees and medical students6. The activities carried out by the Collaborating Centres are presented at major WPA congresses and through policy papers and educational materials, which are made available to the entire WPA community7. The Collaborating Centres bring considerable resources and networks to support, inform and disseminate the work of the WPA, and to lend authority to the Association's strategy and Action Plans. There is no additional budget to support the Centres. The Directors of the Collaborating Centres operate through multiple partners and global leaders to raise the profile of the WPA (for example, by publishing papers in high-impact scientific journals) and by closely collaborating with WPA Scientific Sections (e.g., those on Education in Psychiatry8 and of Early Career Psychiatrists9) and Working Groups (e.g., that on Comorbidities between Physical and Mental Disorders10). The Collaborating Centres have also contributed to national and international policy and guidance documents through the WPA, and have partnered with national and international organizations. In particular, the Centres are constantly in contact with institutions and research networks active in the field of mental health and psychiatry, such as the World Health Organization, the Psychiatric Genetics Consortium, the Enhancing Neuroimaging and Genetic Meta-analysis Consortium, and the World Mental Health Surveys. All Centres have actively contributed to the promotion and dissemination of educational activities and materials focused on timely issues such as public mental health, training and implementation of ICD-11 and related clinical guidelines, management of physical comorbidities in people with severe mental disorders, benefits and innovations of digital health, and management of adolescent mental health. Scholarship opportunities have been provided by the Centres to early career psychiatrists and researchers to attend regional and global WPA congresses through trainee and medical student prize competitions. All Centres participate in setting the competition format, selecting the winners, and providing certificates. The WPA President usually presents the awards at the relevant regional or global congresses. The WPA Collaborating Centres have a specific commitment to improve undergraduate and postgraduate education in psychiatry. In particular, postgraduate educational activities provided in the different Centres include training in a range of psychiatric sub-specialities (e.g., addiction psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, consultation-liaison psychiatry, forensic psychiatry, intellectual disability psychiatry, neuropsychiatry) and provision of additional postgraduate diplomas, masters, and doctoral degrees in fields ranging from neuroscience to clinical psychiatry and public mental health. The two Centres recently added to the Network (i.e., Doha and Chandigarh) have strengthened the role of the WPA in the Middle East and South Asia, respectively, and added further public health and prevention expertise. The network has also established good partnerships with national psychiatric societies, as well as with other international organizations, such as the World Association for Social Psychiatry, the World Federation for Mental Health, and the World Association of Cultural Psychiatry. Moreover, all Centres have carried out specific national and international activities on the basis of their level of expertise, focusing on such issues as health inequalities, digital health, multimorbidity, school mental health, suicide prevention, old age psychiatry, and neurodiversity. Finally, the WPA Collaborating Centres are strongly involved with social responsivity, community engagement, and advocacy for mental health. Opportunities and links for more interdisciplinary work across Centres have been built in the last triennium, and we believe that this interdisciplinary network can further help the growth of the WPA in the near future.