Initiatives and funding

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The annual NMHA Collaborative Seed Grant Scheme funds projects led by early and mid-career Researchers (EMCRs) focused on addressing the burdens posed by neurological, mental health, and substance abuse disorders. Funding is available to support strategic research with a focus on collaboration across organisations and disciplines led by early-to-mid-career researchers in our key areas of interest.

2025 NMHA Collaborative Seed Grant Recipients (up to $75,000)

In this round, the Theme funded one project per sub-theme. We were pleased to see the diversity of high-quality research being undertaken across our Theme and would like to thank all applicants for their interest.

Recipient	Affiliation	Sub-theme	Project title
Dr Gemma Sicouri	UNSW Sydney & Black Dog Institute	Children & Adolescent Wellbeing	Codesigning and integrating a digital parent-led intervention for child anxiety in hospitals: An exploratory study
Dr Peter Brown	Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering	Complex & Difficult to Treat Diseases	Unifying digital health self-management tools for adults living with severe mental illness: A novel approach to enable lifestyle behaviour change
Dr Jun Cao	Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA)	Healthy Ageing	Tissue conductivity imaging as an efficient substitute for FDG-PET
Dr Felix Aplin	School of Biomedical Sciences	Brain Sciences & Translational Neuroscience	Measuring chemosensitivity to predict pathophysiology in respiratory disorders

Past Awards

2024 NMHA Collaborative Seed Grant Recipients (up to $80,000) Recipient

Recipient	Affiliation	Sub-theme	Project title
Dr Anne Palermo	Neuroscience Research Australia	Brain Sciences & Translational Neuroscience	Stimulation-based therapies to restore respiratory function after acute spinal cord injury
A/Prof Jane Kohlhoff	School of Clinical Medicine, Discipline of Psychiatry & Mental Health	Children & Adolescent Well-being	Oxytocin receptor genes as predictors of toddler social-emotional and behavioural issues, and moderators of treatment response to an early parenting intervention
Dr Ria Hopkins	National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre	Complex & Difficult to Treat Diseases	Supporting safe and evidence-informed prescription opioid deprescribing to prevent adverse outcomes and optimise treatment
Dr Lauriane Jugé	Neuroscience Research Australia	Healthy Ageing	Prediction of early cerebral small vessel disease neuropathology in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea

2023 NMHA Collaborative Seed Grant Recipients (up to $40,000)

Recipient	Affiliation	Sub-theme	Project title
Dr Josie van Dorst	School of Clinical Medicine, Sydney Children's Hospital	Children and Adolescent Wellbeing	Modulation of the gut-brain axis in prenatal opioid exposure
Dr Wing See Yuen	National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre	Children and Adolescent Wellbeing	Novel insights into health service use of young people who experience alcohol and other drug-related harm and opportunities for intervention
Dr Scott Teasdale	Discipline of Psychiatry & Mental Health	Complex and Difficult to Treat Diseases	The skeleton in the mental health closet: nutritional deficiency-related hospitalisations in mental health service users in NSW Australia
Dr Duong (Danielle) Thuy Tran	National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre	Complex and Difficult to Treat Diseases	Methadone and buprenorphine for opioid dependence in pregnant women: Quantifying use and health outcomes of mothers and newborns
Dr Claire Burley	School of Health Sciences and School of Clinical Medicine	Healthy Ageing	Healthy Body & Mind Program: A pilot randomised controlled trial to improve quality of life, reduce pain, and reduce dementia risk in people living with cognitive decline and osteoarthritis
Dr Yoshiro Okubo	Neuroscience Research Australia	Healthy Ageing	Development and validation of a paddle trip system to deliver unanticipated, controlled and realistic obstacle trips in older people
Dr Karly Turner	School of Psychology	Brain Sciences and Translational Neuroscience	Do drugs of abuse directly impact the neural circuits responsible for stimulus-controlled behaviour?
Dr Tianruo Guo	Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering	Brain Sciences and Translational Neuroscience	Anti-inflammatory effects of abdominal vagus nerve stimulation on experimental intestinal inflammation

2022 NMHA Collaborative Seed Grant Recipients (up to $80,000)

Recipient	Affiliation	Sub-theme	Project title
Prof Valsamma Eapen	School of Clinical Medicine	Children & Adolescent Wellbeing	Co-design and evaluate a ‘proof of concept’ intervention to improve cognitive, functional, and physical outcomes among young people with long-COVID in a multicultural population experiencing social adversity
Dr Tessa Helman	Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing	Healthy Ageing	Impact of mood and metabolic disorders on Alzheimer’s disease: Investigating sex-specific interactions of chronic condition multimorbidity
A/Prof Gila Moalem-Taylor	School of Biomedical Sciences	Brain Sciences and Translational Neuroscience	Nanoconjugates for treating neuropathic pain in an animal model of multiple sclerosis
Dr Adith Mohan	Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing	Complex and Difficult to Treat Diseases	The Clinical Alliance for Research and Education in Functional Neurological Disorders (CARE FND) – A bi-national clinical consortium to further clinical care and research in FND

2021 NMHA Collaborative Seed Grant Recipients (up to $40,000)

Recipient	Affiliation	Grant title
Dr Bridianne O'Dea	Black Dog Institute	While We Wait: Using digital technology to improve care for young people awaiting in-person mental health services
A/Prof Michelle Tye	Black Dog Institute	Co-designing an implementation strategy for a youth suicide prevention digital health intervention in hospitals: A scoping study
Dr Mei Ling (Mae) Lim	Neuroscience Research Australia	Own Your Balance 2.0: Development of a co-designed eHealth Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Program for Reducing Fear of Falling in Community-living Older People
A/Prof Natasa Gisev	National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre	Quantifying the age-related risk of fall-related harms among adults prescribed opioids in the community
Dr Teri Furlong	School of Biomedical Sciences	Alkaloids derived from Phalaris plants as a novel model of synucleinopathy
Dr Daniel Lin	School of Clinical Medicine	Evaluating the role of visual attention bias in emotion dysregulation in young children
Dr Alison Seccull	School of Clinical Medicine	The co-design of a model of care for the provision of opioid treatment in primary care settings with ongoing support from specialist services
Dr Scott Teasdale	Mindgardens Neuroscience Network	Keeping the Body in Mind – Primary Care: an individualised lifestyle service for people living with severe mental illness in a primary healthcare setting