Data and Digital Industry Alliance Team (DIGIT)
DIGIT is the funded project that delivers three of the programme’s six workstreams: the Alliance Management Team, the Innovative Clinical Trials Hub and the Lived Experience Industry Partnership.
Why it exists
Why it exists
Large pharmaceutical companies and smaller innovators alike have shown renewed interest in UK mental health research, following recent trial results in schizophrenia, post-partum depression and treatment-resistant depression, and the potential of digital approaches. Acting on that interest is harder than it should be: companies rely on individual contacts rather than a clear route in, national data and digital tools are not used well enough to plan trials or choose sites, smaller companies struggle to find support, and patients and families often feel unheard about how their data are used.
DIGIT brings together the expertise to answer that — not only new infrastructure, but deep, curated data access and a new alliance between industry and patients. Its remit is the set of challenges not addressed elsewhere in the programme, the MRC Mental Health Platform or the Mental Health Mission, and it works so that UK sites reach the alliance team whether a company comes to them directly or indirectly.
Alliance Management Team
Create a simple, national structure to support entry into the UK for industry-led research and trials.
Innovative Clinical Trials Hub
Designs and delivers precision psychiatry trials with industry.
Lived Experience Industry Partnership
Establishes patient experience as central to industry priorities.
Beyond the three workstreams
Beyond the three workstreams
DIGIT also supports the policy and regulatory work the programme does with NICE and the MHRA on what industry needs to run mental health trials in the UK. The tools it builds for industry — the capabilities database, the recruitment simulator and the Industry Engagement Forum — are described on For industry.
Who is involved
Who is involved
DIGIT is led by Prof. Mitul Mehta at King’s College London, which holds the award, with co-leads Prof. Richard Emsley (King’s College London), Prof. Edward Harcourt (University of Oxford), Dr Matthias Pierce (University of Manchester), Dr Siân Rees (Health Innovation Oxford & Thames Valley) and Prof. Paula Williamson (University of Liverpool). Dr Vaibhav Narayan co-leads the Alliance Management Team with Professor Mehta.
The team is based across those institutions and reports into the programme’s own governance, working with the MHG Programme Steering Committee and the other workstreams on representation and diversity in data, ethical frameworks and community consultation. The full team is on the Team page.
Funding
DIGIT is funded by the Office for Life Sciences through the Medical Research Council as part of the £50 million Mental Health Goals Programme. It started in January 2026 and runs to 2030. The programme overview is published on GOV.UK.
Work with the programme
The Alliance Management Team will route you to the right people, data and infrastructure.
