New collaboration with GREAT Centre will advance gambling harms research

Posted September 15th 2026

We are proud to announce a new affiliation between the National Centre for Mental Health (NCMH) and the Gambling Research, Education, and Treatment (GREAT) Centre at Swansea University, strengthening collaboration in research focused on gambling and gambling-related harms.

While remaining independent entities, NCMH and GREAT will work more closely together to accelerate research, intervention development, and engagement in an area of growing public health importance.

A shared passion for developing research-based support and care

For many years, NCMH has been developing large-scale mental health research, bringing together genetics and other biological expertise, social and psychological expertise, NHS-linked data, and lived-experience perspectives to help prevent mental health problems, identify them sooner and improve support and care through its Intervention Development programme.

NCMH Director, Professor Jon Bisson said: “NCMH has developed an international reputation for our research, not least on the development of digital treatment programmes for trauma-related conditions, including the recently developed version of Spring for people with prolonged grief disorder”.

The GREAT Centre was launched in 2025, following several years of infrastructure funding from Health and Care Research Wales, to better understand and reduce gambling-related harm through research, policy work and clinical innovation. GREAT’s work combines neuro-behavioural experiments, surveys, and clinical translational approaches to better understand gambling behaviours and the mechanisms underlying gambling-related harm.

It is also part of the UKRI Gambling Harms Research UK Evidence Centre, contributing to national efforts to improve the evidence base surrounding gambling harms and inform policy and practice.

An evolving gambling market and patterns of risk

These research developments take place against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving and highly profitable gambling market, where digital technologies and online access continue to transform patterns and risks of gambling harm.

Professor Simon Dymond, Director of the GREAT Centre said:

“We’re delighted to be formally affiliated with the NCMH. As well as leading the way with astounding research discoveries and developing novel clinical interventions, the NCMH has always emphasised the key role played by lived experience in better understanding mental health.

In the GREAT Centre, lived experience is at the heart of what we do, and we look forward to collaborating with colleagues from across the NCMH to deepen understanding of, and reduce, the serious harms associated with gambling.”

The GREAT Centre has already demonstrated the potential impact of its co-creation approach through engagement with the newly established NHS Wales Gambling Harm Service, among other stakeholders and beneficiaries.

How we’ll work together

Through this new affiliation, NCMH and the GREAT Centre will work together across several areas, including:

• Epidemiological research
• Intervention development to support detection, prevention and treatment
• Raising awareness of the potential adverse impacts of gambling

Professor Bisson concluded:

“We’re delighted to be working more closely with the GREAT Centre. This provides a real opportunity for us to co-develop a programme of research that leads to improvements in the mental health and wellbeing of people adversely affected by gambling.”