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The GALENOS Project

Developing a mental health ontology, to enable users to efficiently locate and interpret relevant mental health information.

The GALENOS project

30 October 2024

Key Facts

Full title: The Global Alliance for Living Evidence on aNxiety, depressiOn and pSychosis (GALENOS) Project

Funder: Wellcome

Start date: 2023

Duration: 3 years

Project partners: Cochrane, Complutense University of Madrid, Edinburgh University, Kyoto University, Monash University, MQ Mental Health Research, Ndinewe Foundation, Stellenbosch University, Technical University of Munich, University College London, University of Bern, University of Oxford, University of Zurich

CBC Researchers: Professor Susan Michie (PI), Dr Paulina Schenk, Micaela Santilli

Mental health research needs a new approach. There are many challenges that exist in the evidence base for mental health research:

  • It is fragmented, often with a "piece by piece" approach to mental health research
  • It is publishing at a rate that makes it increasingly difficult to maintain up-to-date synthesis of studies.
  • Inconsistent language is used to communicate about aspects of mental health.
  • There is a lack of focus on understanding mechanisms of mental health interventions.

This leads to a lack of cumulative knowledge, and potential research waste.

Addressing these challenges

The GALENOS project will gather and analyse literature on anxiety, depression and psychosis.
The evidence synthesised will be continually updated to incorporate the most recent findings in the field. It will be openly available via a Gateway, the GALENOS website and repositories.

Developing a mental health ontology

Ontologies are a 'knowledge structure' to organise and understand evidence in a particular area.

We are leading on the development of a mental health ontology, as part of the GALENOS Project. We will build on the experience and work of The Human Behaviour Change Project.

The mental health ontology will serve as a shared language to communicate about key constructs relating to mental health across the GALENOS Project. This ontology will also allow evidence to be organised and shared more effectively on the data repository of this project. 

Once completed, the ontology will enable users to efficiently locate and interpret relevant mental health information from the systematic reviews in the GALENOS Project. For example, evidence about insomnia from different systematic reviews could be searched for and identified more easily, if this evidence is tagged with a class for insomnia from the ontology. Therefore, the ontology will make it easier to find and streamline evidence from the GALENOS Project, enabling people to engage with and reuse the findings of this project.

Find out more