Petr Winkler

I did my Ph.D. in Health Service and Population Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. In 2015, I established the Department of Public Mental Health at the National Institute of Mental Health, Czech Republic (NIMH CZ), and I had been leading the department until June 2021 when I was appointed as a director of NIMH CZ. As of February 2021, the department was designated as the WHO Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Service Research and Development, and I became its director. In the recent decade, I have been involved in the development and implementation of the mental health care reform in the Czech Republic; and I have been leading three nation-wide projects focused on decreasing mental health related stigma, early interventions in psychosis, and system for evidence based mental health care development. I co-authored both, National Mental Health Action Plan 2030 and National Suicide Prevention Plan of the Czech Republic. My research and practice is very much focused on improving mental health care in the region of central and eastern Europe. I was awarded European Psychiatric Association research prize for the best paper published in 2016. From 2020 to 2022, I was serving as a Lancet Commissioner for Mental Health Stigma and Discrimination. Currently, I serve as a senior editor of the Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health journal. Also, I am a board member of the international NGO Federation on Global Initiatives in Psychiatry (F-GIP).