We are delighted that Wellcome has supported our research programme. Bureaucratic justice is so often a neglected aspect of mental health primary care but it is commonly central to the everyday experiences of people seeking help. This grant will help us develop new evidence, theory, and media to understand this issue in much greater depth—something that will also enhance our ability to think creatively about meaningful innovations in services.
Professor Joe Tomlinson, Professor of Administrative Law
03 October 2025
Law School academic awarded Wellcome Discovery Award for research on mental health and administrative justice
A £2.5 million Wellcome Discovery Award, led by Professor Joe Tomlinson, will investigate how bureaucratic justice could transform mental health
Primary health services are the first point of contact for those seeking support for common mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression. These services form an essential part of the response to the UK’s mental health crisis.
Engagement with those accessing and navigating primary care pathways for common mental health problems has highlighted that accessing and engaging with support frequently involves struggling with complex and burdensome bureaucratic processes at an already difficult time. These experiences can leave people with a profound sense of unjust treatment that continues throughout their journey through the system.
Research across different disciplines has suggested that perceptions of ‘just’ treatment can also significantly impact treatment outcomes by affecting engagement with services, deterring individuals from seeking support in the future, and exacerbating existing inequalities within the system.
This research programme, led by Professor Joe Tomlinson and funded by a £2.5 million Wellcome Discovery Award, will pioneer the application of the theory of ‘bureaucratic justice’ in primary mental health services. By deploying an innovative combination of a longitudinal quantitative and qualitative study with participatory storytelling methods, the programme will develop a new understanding of the nature and relevance of just treatment in the context of how people interact with frontline administrative processes in primary care mental health services.
The programme will also build an interdisciplinary community of researchers, while providing a platform to embed lived experiences of seeking mental health support into research practices in innovative and engaging ways.
The programme formally launches in January 2026 and will run for six years. Alongside colleagues at The Dickson Poon School of Law and King’s, the programme will also benefit from the expertise from academics based at the University of York and the University of Manchester. The research team includes Dr Jed Meers, Dr Simona Manni, Dr Annie Irvine, Dr Aisling Ryan, Professor Todd Hartman, and Professor Lina Gega.
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Professor of Administrative Law