The WPA Scientific Sections: a global resource for education, research and care

The WPA currently comprises 66 Scientific Sections, a testament to the clinical and scientific richness of contemporary psychi­atry. Like no other medical discipline, psy­chiatry reaches beyond a mere biological model of health and illness, integrating psychology, philosophy, spirituality, social sci­ences, and hands‐on care into its practice. It is WPA's mission to further this unique char­acter across the globe through its Sci­entific Sections.

In the last five years, the WPA has upped its efforts to enhance the communication of its Scientific Sections with each other, with other bodies of the Association, and with oth­er global organizations1, 2. This has led to many new initiatives, among them the Education, Science, Publication, and Research Initiative (ESPRI) ³ , the WPA Exchange Program ⁴ , and an active involvement of the Association in competitively funded research grants. Furthermore, the Sections have been instrumental in shaping the development of various online re­sources to help alleviate the impact of re­cent disasters on mental health (e.g., COVID‐19 pandemic, Russia's war against Ukraine).

The ESPRI was introduced in 2020 as a vehicle to jumpstart research projects in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), with the WPA providing seed funding to (preferably) early career investigators for carrying out scientific projects of relevance to their respective country or region and for which funding would be difficult to obtain otherwise. At this point, the WPA has funded six projects from around the globe, addressing a variety of issues: major depression in old age (Tanzania); psychological impact of Ebola and COVID‐19 (Liberia); genomics of bipolar disorder (Nigeria); poverty alleviation for persons with mental health problems (Pakistan); transdiagnostic and transcultural web‐based psychotherapeutic tools (Pakistan); and development of training tools for the examination and documentation of the psychological sequelae of torture and war (UK, Austria and Syria).

While the topics are quite different, the common denominator of these ESPRI proj­ects is that they implement or pilot novel ­approaches that eventually can lay the foundation for larger third party‐funded projects. All projects need to be supported by at least one WPA Scientific Section. The WPA encourages ESPRI projects to be spearheaded by early career psychiatrists and requires that the respective institutions provide match­ing funds to an ESPRI investigator, either as cash awards or in‐kind support. It is WPA's hope that this approach will help increase both the national and international visibility of promising researchers from LMICs.

WPA's commitment to early career col­leagues has also been the driving force be­hind the establishment of the WPA Ex­change Program (worldpsychiatryexchangepro­gram.wordpress.com), conceptualized and spearheaded by the Early Career Psychiatrists Section. Open to the members of this Section (which welcomes physicians currently in postgraduate psychiatric training or within 7 years after specializing in psychiatry), the program is meant to support cross‐continent exchanges to engage in clinical, research or teaching activities. At present, institutions from Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Iran, New Zealand, Tunisia and the UK have joined the program. After a delay of over one year due to the COVID‐19 pandemic, first placements of candidates have been made. The WPA leadership is looking forward to hearing from participants about their experiences and suggestions on how to further develop this program.

To further strengthen its role not only as an umbrella organization of national psychiatric societies but also as a platform and resource to perform state‐of‐the‐art research of global scope, the WPA encourages Scientific Sections to take an active role in applying for competitive funding, given the unique expertise represented across them. This push for scientific visibility recently proved successful: under the leadership of the Secretary for Scientific Sections and the Section on Genetics in Psychiatry, the WPA is now a partner and institutional investigator in the multinational research consortium PSY‐PGx (www.PSY‐PGx.org), funded by the European Commission within the Horizon 2020 framework.

PSY‐PGx is the first non‐commercial, large‐scale, international psychiatric pharmacogenomics initiative with the overarching aim to produce robust data that will eventually contribute to precision psychiatry, reducing individual and societal burden of psychiatric illness ⁵ . The WPA will take a leading role in the dissemination and education aspects, directing its efforts both at the clinical community and the general public. With the expert guidance provided by the Section on Genetics in Psychiatry, the WPA will use its recently launched learning management system (LMS) ⁶ , diverse conference formats, as well as bespoke tools to inform psychiatrists around the world about the latest developments in pharmacogenomics of relevance to everyday clinical work.

A key component and major strength of this activity is a close collaboration with representatives of service users and carers. To this end, the WPA will perform this research together with representatives of its Service Users and Family Carers Advisory Group (www.wpanet.org/wpa‐service‐users‐and‐family‐carers) ⁷ and of GAMIAN (www.gamian.eu). Like the WPA, GAMIAN receives its own funding within PSY‐PGx.

Very recently, another project (PSYCH‐STRATA) submitted to the European Commission, focusing on multimodal predictors of treatment resistance in psychiatry, was granted funding for five years. As with PSY‐PGx, the WPA will co‐lead the global dissemination efforts and help make the patients’ voices heard.

It is WPA's first and foremost goal to advance mental health for people all over the world, to encourage the highest possible standards of clinical practice and ethical behavior in psychiatry, and to be a voice for the dignity and human rights of patients and their families. This is never more important than in times of exceptional crises like the ones we are witnessing today, with the COVID‐19 pandemic ⁸ and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine ⁹ taking their toll on the most vulnerable. With the help of its Scientific Sections, the WPA has been able to develop valuable online resources to aid in alleviating the suffering caused by these crises.

Over the past decade, WPA Scientific Sec­tions have substantially contributed to the Association's global leadership in psychiatric practice and care. WPA's strength lies in its global reach and diversity. And these are not just hollow words: with almost each Section having members in every corner of the world, the WPA cannot only raise its voice but also lend its hand whenever and wherever psychiatric expertise is needed.

The WPA will continue to foster collab­oration between its Scientific Sections. Only through a well‐developed intersectional infrastructure, will the Association be able to achieve its goals as laid out in its triennial Action Plan10, 11, 12. WPA's intersectional activities (e.g., symposia, courses, workshops) have become a staple of WPA meetings and will be showcased in a WPA Thematic Congress on Intersectional Collaboration, “New Horizons in Psychiatric Practice: Cre­ative Ideas and Innovative Interventions”, to be held in Malta on November 10‐12, 2022.