The University of Cambridge is creating a new Professorship in education and mental health, to further strengthen a growing research programme aimed at improving the wellbeing, and associated life chances, of children and young adults.
The post was announced last week (Wednesday 11 March), by the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen Toope, as he opened the Yidan Prize Conference: Europe, a major, international gathering of leading education researchers. The university, he said, had a ‘critical’ role to play in addressing the challenges of mental health.
The Yidan Prize Conference Series is linked to the Yidan Prize, the largest international prize in education, which is made annually to two outstanding individuals responsible for transformational changes in education research and development. The European conference is hosted by the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College, Cambridge.
One of the Yidan Laureates honoured this year was Usha Goswami, Professor of Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience at the University, and a Fellow of St John’s College. She received the award for her work deepening understanding of children’s early language acquisition, which has created a basis for new, effective interventions for dyslexia.
The conference more broadly aims to profile world-leading research that demonstrates how education can address major global challenges, and this year focused on wellbeing and education as one of its main themes: examining how schools, teachers and the education system in general can support children with mental health problems.
Opening the event, Professor Toope announced that the University will be creating a new role – Professor of the Psychology of Education and Mental Health – which will be based in its Faculty of Education. The first post-holder will be Professor Gordon Harold (pictured), currently at the University of Sussex, who has led several, field-changing studies into the relationship between domestic adversity and young people’s mental health, enabling schools and teachers to do more to support pupils with depression, anxiety and other mental health problems
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge