December 15, 2025
Read the original press release by Mayden here
15 December 2025
By Louisa
The NIHR Mental Health Research Group at the University of Bath will drive new applied research, strengthen regional partnerships, and improve outcomes for young people aged 12–25.
A major new research initiative has been launched at the University of Bath to improve mental health support for young people across Bath, North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire (BSW).
The NIHR Mental Health Research Group at the University of Bath (Bath MHRG), funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), will focus on helping young people aged 12–25 during key life transitions, such as starting university, entering work, or leaving home.
The group brings together experts from: University of Bath, University of Bristol, University of Exeter and industry partners like Mayden. Consequently, their work will explore practical ways to improve access to help, and support young people with additional needs such as autism and ADHD. Also, it will focus on reducing the harms linked with substance use, and understand how early experiences shape long-term wellbeing.
“This initiative represents significant steps forward in how we understand and support young people’s mental health,” said Dr Katherine Button of the Bath MHRG. “By working closely with local partners, and involving young people and families at every stage, we aim to create research that directly improves lives across our region.”
A key part of the programme involves strengthening community involvement. Young people with lived experience of mental health difficulties will play a central role in shaping research priorities, interpreting findings, and guiding how evidence is utilised.
Mayden, a leader in digital healthcare technology and supplier of the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system iaptus, is supporting the initiative as an industry partner and co-sponsor of a PhD project focused on neurodivergent youth.
Vyara Stoyanova, Doctoral Researcher at Bath MHRG said of the partnership: “The collaboration will explore how digital systems and electronic health records can better reflect lived experiences and support needs of neurodivergent young people.”
Dr Alice Davis, Research Product Owner at Mayden said: “We’re proud to contribute our technical expertise to support this research. Through partnerships, we aim to understand how local services record neurodevelopmental and additional needs, identify best practices, and ensure data is used safely and effectively to improve outcomes.”
“This research has the potential to transform mental health outcomes for young people,” Dr Philippa Kindon, Neurodiversity Champion at Mayden added. “Through this collaboration, we aim to better understand how iaptus can meet the needs of neurodivergent young people and incorporate their lived experiences into system development.”
Mayden’s involvement includes providing access to their iaptus platform, advising on data ethics and governance, reviewing local service reporting processes, and supporting the development of best practices for recording additional needs. The Mayden team will also contribute to supervision, offer feedback on research outputs, and hope to contribute to national lobbying around data quality and service improvement.
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The NIHR Mental Health Research Group (Bath MHRG) is a University of Bath–led initiative focused on improving applied mental health research for young people aged 12–25 across Bath, North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire. Supported by £11 million in NIHR funding, the group works across disciplines and in partnership with local communities to co-produce impactful, practical solutions that strengthen mental health and wellbeing.
Mayden is a Bath-based software company specialising in digital technology for health and care. Co-created with partners, customers, academics and service users, Mayden designs and delivers solutions that help services do more with what they have, guaranteeing high value and real, measurable impact. Together, with their partners, they’re building the foundations of a more connected and compassionate health ecosystem.
iaptus is the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) for improved outcomes, designed by Mayden to streamline care for mental health and neurodiversity services. iaptus™ is an intuitive, cloud-based EPR that streamlines processes, manages caseloads and supports high quality, outcomes focused care. Built to lighten the admin load, iaptus gifts back valuable clinical time to spend with those that need it most.
The mission of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is to improve the
health and wealth of the nation through research. We do this by:
• Funding high quality, timely research that benefits the NHS, public health and social care;
• Investing in world-class expertise, facilities and a skilled delivery workforce to translate
discoveries into improved treatments and services;
• Partnering with patients, service users, carers and communities, improving the relevance,
quality and impact of our research;
• Attracting, training and supporting the best researchers to tackle complex health and social
care challenges;
• Collaborating with other public funders, charities and industry to help shape a cohesive and
globally competitive research system;
• Funding applied global health research and training to meet the needs of the poorest
people in low and middle income countries.
The Department of Health and Social Care funds NIHR. Its work in low and middle
income countries is principally funded through UK international development funding from
the UK government.
