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2020 marks the second year for Sarah Brown Mental Health Grant

20 January 2020

The RCVS Mind Matters Initiative will be running its Sarah Brown Mental Health Research Grant for the second year in 2020.

The grant is part of a five-year commitment to award one £20,000 grant each year to fund research that focuses on mental health and wellbeing within the veterinary professions, including areas such as prevention, diagnosis, intervention and treatment.

Named for an elected RCVS Council member who tragically passed away in 2017, the Sarah Brown Mental Health Research Grant aims to help advance research and contribute to improving mental health within the veterinary professions – an area about which Sarah was passionate.  

Dr Kate Stephen pictured with Sarah Brown's familyScotland’s Rural College (SRUC) was awarded the inaugural grant at RCVS Day in July 2019. Dr Kate Stephen (pictured with Sarah Brown's family), a Behavioural Scientist at SRUC’s Epidemiology Research Unit, is leading the project, which aims to identify how to better promote job satisfaction and to break the cycle of negative thoughts and poor mental wellbeing identified amongst farm vets.

Lizzie Lockett, RCVS CEO and MMI Director, says: “We were very impressed with the range and number of proposals last year, and SRUC’s in particular. We are looking forward to seeing what this year’s applicants will propose. We are encouraging anyone interested in applying for this grant to keep an eye out for the launch over the next few weeks and think about any potential topics that they might want to explore.”

Full guidelines and criteria for the grant applications will be released at launch, but interested parties may want to look at the information for last year’s process to get an idea of what the application process may involve.

This year we will also be offering a workshop, run in conjunction with RCVS Knowledge, on how to develop a research proposal, to support applicants through the process. More details will be released soon, so make sure to watch this space.

More information on the Sarah Brown Mental Health Research Grant can be found on the Mind Matters website.

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