Student mental health

What we’re doing

Funded projects

We have run three funding programmes for higher education providers to develop practical and innovative approaches and solutions to support students' mental health. You can read more about the funded projects below.

Mental health funding competition: Using innovation and intersectional approaches to target mental health support for students

In October 2020, we launched a new funding competition to support students with characteristics identified as increasing the risk of poor mental health, and students who may experience barriers to accessing support due to their course, mode of study or other characteristics.

In August 2021 we announced the successful 18 projects.

We are running this programme with £1 million funding from the Department of Health and Social Care and an additional £2 million from the Department of Education.

See the projects funded by the funding competition

Mental health Challenge Competition: Achieving a step change in mental health outcomes for all students

In October 2018 we launched a £6 million Challenge Competitionto help higher education providers, working with students, students’ unions and partners such as the NHS and charities, to generate new approaches to mental health issues.

In June 2019 we announced the 10 successful projects. The projects cover a variety of innovative approaches to improving student mental health outcomes and includes more than 50 partners from a wide range of organisations.

See the projects funded by the Challenge Competition

Catalyst fund: Supporting mental health and wellbeing for postgraduate research students

To support the mental health and wellbeing of postgraduate research students, we worked with Research England to deliver 17 projects, with a combined £1.5 million investment.

The projects started in March 2018 and concluded in January 2020.

In October 2020 Research England published a report on the programme. The report seeks to examine the impact of a range of prevention, early intervention, and support activities on the mental health and wellbeing of postgraduate research students to determine effective practice using an evaluation framework developed by Vitae.

See the projects funded by the Catalyst fund

Student Space: an online platform to support students' mental health and wellbeing during the pandemic

In July 2020 the OfS and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) made £3 million available for Student Minds to lead the development of a targeted programme of mental health support called Student Space. The online platform includes wellbeing information and free access to phone and text support.

In February 2022, it was announced that a further £600,000 has been granted to Student Minds to continue their programme of support until the end of July 2022.

Student mental health: What works

From May 2022 we will be undertaking a national programme to identify and mobilise effective practice to support student mental health in the English higher education sector.

A key element of this work will be building a central hub of digital resources to make research and practice accessible to universities and colleges.

This work will be delivered by a consortium of organisations, including TASO as the lead partner and What Works Wellbeing, Universities UK, SMaRteN, King's College London, Student Minds and AMOSSHE, to deliver this work.

Read our news item announcing the programme

Read our blog post about the programme

Guidance and collaboration

In addition, we have also:

produced a mental health briefing note looking at the ways universities and colleges are supporting the mental health needs of their students during the coronavirus pandemic and signposting to sources of advice
published case studies demonstrating some of the ways universities, colleges and others are supporting the mental health needs of their students during the coronavirus pandemic
written an Insight brief and produced accompanying analysis exploring the differential outcomes for students with a declared mental health condition, with other characteristics
shared effective practice to inform the development of evidence-based policy to drive change across the sector, including our topic briefing on suicide prevention
part funded guidance to help university leaders prevent student suicides, published in September 2018 by Universities UK (UUK) and Papyrus
provided funding and support to Student Minds to develop a University Mental Health Charter
joined UUK’s Mental Health in HE Advisory Group which is shaping and supporting UUK’s programme of work to improve mental health in universities.

Last updated 13 May 2022 + show all updates

13 May 2022: Announcement of new 'what works' programme led by TASO
30 March 2022: Added further information about Student Space
03 March 2022: Added link to suicide prevention effective practice topic briefing
17 January 2022: Added information about the Student Space platform
17 August 2021: Updated with the latest Mental Health Challenge Competition
25 March 2021: Competition deadline removed
08 October 2020: Content update and link to new Catalyst fund evaluation report
19 February 2020: Removed out of date information
06 December 2019: Removed one broken link.

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Student mental health

What we’re doing

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