INU is delighted to announce its support to the latest Seed Money Funding application under Phase 1 – New Projects. INU will allocate £2,500 funding to the project entitled “Advancing Mental Health Research between Japan-US from a Cultural and Existential Relational Perspective”.
The project lead, Dr Lindsey Harvell-Bowman, Associate Professor at the School of Communication Studies at James Madison University (USA) along with project partner, Dr Russell Kabir, Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Hiroshima University (Japan) will be working together to research lowering suicidality among those in Japan and the US through clinical research and comparison studies between the two countries. Utilizing Interpersonal Reconstructive Therapy and Terror Management Theory, the project will include conducting clinical interviews to assess the mental health of Japanese citizens and explore potential roadblocks to receiving care. This research will also feature clinical measures to assess current mental health of individuals utilizing both Japanese and American clinical psychologists.
The intention is to publish the work, outlining the results and potential solutions. The project will include graduate and postgraduate students and enable the sharing of research techniques which can be employed by the research centres for their future work.
INU Council members were happy to support research into such an important societal topic, as well as supporting the continuation of further collaboration in this field which has stemmed from Dr Kabir’s recent visit to James Madison University, under INU’s Early Career Researcher Mobility program earlier in 2024. Dr Kabir spent time at the Terror Management Lab at James Madison University, hosted by Dr Harvell-Bowman, discussing the importance of mental health in both countries, delving deeper into this area through different cultural lens. The Seed Money Funding project proposal is the next step to deepening research collaborations in this area between the two universities, and in future to expand further to making this a multi-lateral project including further INU member universities.
To learn more about Seed Money Funding, designed to support creative new ideas which will benefit the network and increase global engagement within the INU, please visit: https://www.inunis.net/seed-money-fund/