Recruiting sites
University of Bergen
The University of Bergen (UiB) is an internationally recognised research university with seven faculties and nearly 20 000 students, along with 4 200 faculty and staff. Yearly, around 250 candidates are awarded with a PhD degree. About half of graduating doctors are from outside Norway. The faculties of Medicine and Psychology are collaborating closely with Haukeland University Hospital at the medical campus. The hospital has approx. 1100 beds, many outpatient units and 13 000 employees. The University is engaged in the European Union’s Framework programmes for research and technological development and has been designated as a European Research Infrastructure and a Research Training Site in several scientific fields. UiB is currently involved in 96 different H2020 collaborative research projects, 37 of which it coordinates.
IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli
The Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico (IRCCS) Fatebenefratelli is a national centre for research and care of mental disorders and dementias, and has strong connections with leading academic centres worldwide. With 244 beds for inpatient activity, all in neuropsychiatry, it carries out intensive outpatient activity with about 4,500 persons with Alzheimer’s disease or associated disorders and 2,500 with mental disorders seen and treated annually. More than eighty full-time researchers work in preclinical and clinical labs, producing large number of papers published in peer-reviewed medical journals. The IRCCS Fatebenefratelli has won several grant applications funded by the European Union, including the neuGRID, outGRID, neuGRID4U, MILESTONE, EU-VIORMED, Joint Implemental and has received funding from SANCO for the organization of an official European conference on Youth mental health. The IRCCS belongs to the St John of God Order, which runs three other large psychiatric facilities in Northern Italy, each including a large number of residential facilities hosting many patients with SMDs; one of these hospitals runs one of the new forensic facilities established in Italy after the new reform law on forensic psychiatric care.
University Hospitals of Geneva, Switzerland
Founded in 1559, the University of Geneva (UNIGE) enjoys worldwide recognition, and is the third largest university in Switzerland in terms of number of students. UNIGE offers more than 500 programmes, including 136 Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes, 87 doctoral programmes. In 2016, the UNIGE was ranked 53rd among world universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, and 95th in the QS World University ranking.
Founded in 1876, the Faculty of Medicine is a leader in neuroscience, genetics and transplantation, among others. It is also committed to teachning and research in global health. Its fundamental research, of international level, as well as its close association with the largest hospital complex in Switzerland, the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), give it all the assets to develop a major axis of translational research. HUG integrate all medical specialties as part of their 70 services led by professors and researchers from the Faculty of Medicine of the UNIGE.
Part of the Department of Psychiatry of both UNIGE and HUG, the Emotional Regulation Disorders Unit (TRE Unit), led by Prof Nader Perroud, is a specialized center for adult ADHD and borderline personality disorder. It takes care of more than 200 patients a year and offers diagnoses, treatment advises and specialized psychotherapeutic approaches; mainly dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and mentalization based treament (MBT). It actively collaborates at the national and international level, with different centers across Europe, in order to improve the care and management of these disorders.
The TRE Unit is located in Geneva (20bis rue de Lausanne, 1201 Geneva, Switzerland, phone: +41223054511) in the Service of Psychiatric Specialities.
University Hospital of Frankfurt (GUF)
Goethe University Frankfurt is one of the leading Universities in Germany; the Medical Faculty was positioned among the 75 best Universities worldwide in the Shanghai Ranking Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy of 2012. The Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the University Hospital of Frankfurt (Head: Prof. Dr. A. Reif) is uniquely and ideally suited to carry out translational research in psychiatry. Key research questions revolve around developmental psychiatry (in close collaboration with the Department for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Head: Prof. Dr. C.M. Freitag, and as evidenced by the recent foundation of the German Center for Developmental Psychiatry D-ZEP), precision medicine approaches in psychiatry including biomarker discovery and translational psychiatry with focus on the pathophysiology of ADHD, bipolar disorder, and major depression. There is access to large patient samples, as the Department features >150 inpatient beds, room for 30 day-patients, and large outpatient facilities specialised for patients suffering from ADHD, substance use disorders and affective disorders. Beyond treatment as usual, there is an extensive and elaborate clinical research framework including early recognition of psychiatric disorders, cognitive remediation and long-term follow-up of patients including neuropsychological /-imaging examinations. There is a routine for the biobanking of cognitive and fluid biomarkers including DNA and proteomic samples. The Department’s expertise in serving as a core biobank and genotyping center is also evidenced by contribution to several networks on psychiatric genetics (PGC, MooDS) as well as participation in multi-site studies such as the recently funded BipoLife network and the EU-funded projects Aggressotype and MiND.
Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR)
The Fundació Institut de Recerca of the Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron (VHIR) is a public sector institution that promotes and develops innovative biomedical research, with more than 1,641 publications in 2021 (Total Impact Factor: 11,375) (https://annualreport2021.vhir.org/).
The Group of Psychiatry, Mental Health and Addictions are part of eCORE Brain&Mind and Behaviour, a section that is leading the translational research at our institution and is becoming one of the most important clusters of research on neurological and psychiatric disorders across Europe. The Group of Psychiatry, Mental Health and Addictions, which is integrated by psychiatrists, psychologist, geneticists and mathematicians, is a Spanish reference center for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), personality disorders and mood disorders. Also they have access to common services at the institution including the Support Unit for Biomedical Research Methodology (USMIB), the Scientific Unit technical Support (UCTS), which houses genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and bioinformatics facilities, and the Statistics and Bioinformatics Unit (BSU) that gives them support for high-throughput data analysis in the context of different research projects.
