Emerging Leaders Prize fuels the future of research into young people’s mental health
A look at the future leaders receiving funding in our latest round of Emerging Leaders Prize awards.
We are thrilled to announce the four winners of our Emerging Leaders Prize for 2025.
The theme of this year’s Prize is ‘Children and Young People’s Mental Health’. One in five children in the UK experience a mental health condition, but despite this, over a third of those who are referred for NHS support services are not accepted into treatment. This highlights why further research funding is needed to better understand how mental health conditions present themselves in young people, and how diagnosis and prevention can be improved.
Through the Emerging Leaders Prize, we celebrate the achievements of scientists working in a specific field and support their ongoing research. The funding is designed to facilitate their career development, whether that be by investing in new technologies, undertaking training, or developing research internships.
Previous prize-winners have used their funding to investigate how a warming climate might be exacerbating the spread of antibiotic-resistant superbugs and how we can improve liver cancer diagnosis in people with hepatitis.
This year, there was £100,000 available for the first place prize, with three second place prizes also awarded, each of extremely high quality. These studies will all contribute to protecting young people’s mental health while also creating more supportive environments for them growing up.
Read on to find out about the four exceptional researchers and their projects.
First Place - £100,000: Dr Gemma Knowles, King’s College London
Can sexism and misogyny explain why teenage girls are more likely to experience mental health conditions like anxiety and depression than teenage boys?
It has already been well established that teenage girls are more likely to experience anxiety and depression than teenage boys. But why is this? Dr Gemma Knowles and her team at King’s College London will investigate these gender inequalities, expanding their current work to explore boys’ experiences of sexism and misogyny, and how this might impact their mental health.
Gemma says, “I’m really honoured and excited to receive the Emerging Leaders Prize. This support means we can look more closely at boys’ experiences of and responses to sexism and misogyny, and how these experiences shape their social and emotional development. It builds on our Bridging Divides project and moves us closer to understanding - and tackling - gender inequalities in young people’s mental health.”
Joint Second Place - £80,000: Dr Eleanor Leigh, University of Oxford
How can we more accurately measure feelings of interest and pleasure in young people with mental health conditions, and develop treatments to enhance these feelings?
Anhedonia is defined as experiencing a lack of pleasure or interest in things you would usually enjoy. It’s a common symptom of anxiety and depression, and can be highly distressing, yet it is significantly under-researched. Through her project, Dr Eleanor Leigh and her team at the University of Oxford will develop a new, more accurate and age-specific method for measuring these feelings in children and teenagers.
Joint Second Place - £80,000: Dr Maria Rogdaki, King’s College London
How does a rare genetic disorder disrupt brain function and increase the risk of psychosis in young people?
22q11.2 deletion syndrome is a genetic disorder which can lead to a diverse range of symptoms throughout the body. It also comes with an increased risk of autism, ADHD and mental health conditions with serious symptoms like psychosis. Dr Maria Rogdaki and her team at King’s College London will investigate the causes of psychosis in young people with 22q11.2, both through brain imaging and laboratory-grown brain cells, with the ultimate aim of developing personalised treatments.
Joint Second Place - £40,000: Dr Josefien Breedvelt, King’s College London
What factors make preventative psychological therapies more or less effective for different young people?
Anxiety and depression in young people often worsen over time and can lead to more severe mental health conditions in adulthood. That’s why Dr Josefien Breedvelt and her colleagues at King’s College London study preventative psychological therapies for mental health conditions. The team will now work closely with young people to determine what the driving factors are that make a therapy either effective or not for a particular individual, allowing them to develop tailored preventative support for young people.
Medical Research Foundation CEO Dr Angela Hind says, “Half of all mental health issues start by the age of 14 and, despite an increasing awareness of these conditions in children and young people, research in this area remains significantly underfunded.”
“That’s why we’re really pleased to be supporting these four researchers, who are already doing outstanding work to investigate the complex causes and social factors that are involved in mental health conditions, and develop new ways to prevent and treat them.”
“Not only will their research support the mental health of children right now, but it will also help to protect against severe mental health problems in the adults these children will become.”
We will be announcing the theme of our 2026 Emerging Leaders Prize in the coming weeks, which will then open for applications.