Title: SMARtEN: Student Mental Health Research Network
Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council

Abstract: Our vision is to change the Higher Education experience for all students and realise the ambition of an education system that supports students to thrive. Our network will build a comprehensive understanding of student mental health, including what good mental health means to students and the risk and protective factors that can be targeted to improve all students' mental health. There has been great political, public and professional concern about students' mental health. The mental wellbeing reported by university students is among the lowest across the population. The sector has seen a dramatic rise in help-seeking with some institutions reporting that 1 in 4 of their students are either being seen by the university counselling service or are waiting to be seen. In the five years from 2010, there was a 210% increase in students with experience of mental health problems dropping out of university, incurring tuition fee debt and yet unable to yield a 'graduate wage premium.' While there is an obvious loss of return on public investment when students drop out of university, there are also expansive opportunities for a Higher Education system to support young adults to thrive in the present and future. There is no clear narrative about the trends in student mental health or how best to respond. As such, developing effective solutions and allocating resources for a coherent institutional response is difficult and the potential for unintended consequences increases. The past 15 years have seen a rise in ad hoc arrangements of non-specialist, generic psycho-emotional interventions at all levels of the education system, administered and promoted by a flourishing commercial market. Extensive discussion with stakeholders, including lecturers, heads of teaching departments and heads of university counselling and support services, shows ambivalence and disagreement about what is happening and how best to respond. Our cross-disciplinary team is committed to research and open-minded debate that looks at the balance between risk and benefit, addresses the contested and complicated questions and does not assume that any intervention must be a "good thing" in and of itself. The starting point for our network is that there is no single answer to understanding the challenges for student mental health, no single solution and no single discipline that can address all of the challenges. Our team brings together researchers with expertise in student wellbeing, psychology, epidemiology, social and economic research, anthropology, ethnography, informatics, social media, big data, arts, culture, education, behavioural science and mental health. As the network develops we will engage still more diverse experience and expertise. The focus of the network will be to understand student mental health and mental health problems. We will address three questions; (1) What is distinctive about the mental health experiences of students? (2) What factors influence student mental health? and (3) What can non-clinical universal approaches to student mental health achieve? Engagement with students and key stakeholders (student support services, educators and clinicians) will maximise the benefits and impact of research and encourage knowledge exchange. Student engagement will be central to the network's core activities and include the development of a Student Research Team, a Priority Setting Partnership to establish students' priority research questions, two student-led mental health conferences and strong engagement across the other network activities. Network activities will focus on four 'plus' funding rounds with each round including workshops and activities to support knowledge exchange, encourage collaboration, facilitate user engagement, and support creative applications from Early Career Researchers.


Research activity codes: 2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS;8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES
Health categories: MENTAL HEALTH