Author name:
Elchin Asgarov, PhD Student, Hub for Metabolic Psychiatry
Published 15 October 2025
MHP Research Summit: An Early Career Researcher Perspective
Elchin Asgarov is a PhD Student at the Hub for Metabolic Psychiatry. He attended the MHP Research Summit on 10th October 2025, and tells us about his experience.
Enthusiasm
Mental health research is evolving rapidly, and events like the Mental Health Platform Research Summit play an important part in making that change happen. On 10th October, I attended the Mental Health Platform Research Summit.
It was a one-day event in Edinburgh where mental health experts, doctors, and researchers came together to share new ideas about severe mental illness. The summit included talks, poster presentations, and discussions on how to improve mental health care and support people with serious mental health conditions.
The conference took place in the Playfair Library Hall, a beautiful historic building. The room was bright and welcoming with lots of space for people to talk and share ideas. You could feel a mix of history and learning, making it a great place for a mental health research event. People were enthusiastic and eager to exchange ideas with each other. It was a great place to make new connections and find people to collaborate with to solve challenges in mental health research.
Research
The conference featured keynote speakers, presentations, and poster sessions. One of the most standout talks came from Professor Dame Til Wykes.
She discussed how to involve people with lived experience of mental illness when creating research tools, and how this makes the research more impactful. She also highlighted the importance of patient and public involvement and how it affects the quality of mental health research.
Another interesting talk was at one of the parallel sessions, from Marcos Del Pozo Banos, who spoke about five key challenges of AI in mental healthcare and research. He highlighted that AI could greatly improve mental health care, but it must be used in ways that fit with existing standards. He pointed out major challenges that need attention and mentioned that by solving these challenges, we can develop AI tools that can support mental health care.
I also presented my poster at this event and received valuable feedback from experts in the mental health field. This feedback gave me new ideas for improving my research.
Collaboration
The Mental Health Platform Research Summit was important for the mental health field because it provided a platform for experts and researchers to learn from each other, share innovative ideas and explore better ways to help people with serious mental illness. It also helped ensure that researchers remained connected to new developments in the field, which is one of the fastest-growing areas of study.
The insights gained from the summit can help guide future research and improve mental care practices. By prioritising patient involvement and addressing challenges such as AI integration, researchers can develop more effective interventions and tools. This work could lead to better support, treatment and outcomes for people with severe mental illness.
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Optimism, caffeine & connection. Notes from the Playfair Library Hall, Edinburgh University on World Mental Health Day - where research met real life (& occasionally forgot it was in the room).