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Recent Updates

News

FAMILY Project hosting a Symposium at EPA Section of Epidemiology & Social Psychiatry Congress, in September 16th – 19th 2026

The FAMILY project will bring together international research on the FAMILY project at the EPA Congress 2026 in Brescia, Italy, with a dedicated symposium on young people at high familial risk.

The symposium, “Identification of genetic, individual and environmental risk factors for the development of mental disorders in young offspring at high familial risk,” will be chaired by Caroline Vandeleur and co-chaired by Anne Thorup.

The session will provide findings from longitudinal studies across Europe, focusing on how mental health difficulties emerge and develop from childhood into adolescence and early adulthood.

FAMILY Researchers will present new evidence on early psychotic experiences and psychopathology, childhood predictors of later mental disorders, potential protective factor, and the interplay between direct genetic effects and parental environmental influences.

To sum up, the presentations underline the importance of understanding risk and resilience from the earliest stages of development. By identifying factors that increase vulnerability and that may protect against later difficulties, the research can help towards a better understanding, earlier identification and more effective prevention of mental disorders.

The FAMILY project is looking forward to meeting you at EPA Congress 2026 in Brescia and share our research findings with you.

16th – 19th September 2026
News

FAMILY & EUFAMI at EPA Congress 2026

At the EPA Congress 2026 in March in Prague, EUFAMI presented  the FAMILY project at their booth, emphasizing the vital role of families in mental health care and explaining how the project aims to change how we understand and prevent the intergenerational transmission of mental illness by integrating genetics, environment, and lived experience into innovative prediction models.

EUFAMI as a key partner in the project ensures that family perspectives guide both research and policy translation. The initiative underscores a core message: effective prevention begins with understanding—and understanding starts by listening to families.

31 March 2026
News

Workshop for Early-Career Researchers on Family-Based Genomic Analysis

The PsychGen Centre for Genetic Epidemiology and Mental Health is hosting a two-day, in-person workshop focused on family-based genomic methods, taking place in Oslo, Norway, on 9 – 10 April 2026.

This workshop will provide introductory lectures and hands-on training in within-family and trio-based genetic methods, including trio polygenic score analyses, trio GWAS, genomic SEM, M-GCTA/Trio-GCTA, and intergenerational mendelian randomization.

We will also have short talks by early-career researchers with applications of these methods and keynote lectures from leading scientists reflecting on the past, present, and future of research in this field. This workshop is aimed at PhD students and early-career researchers .

The workshop will be taking place in a bright and modern venue with direct access to a rooftop garden in the Oslo Science Park, Oslo, Norway.

Link to the workshop website (for information and registration): https://www.fhi.no/en/ab/conferences/workshop-on-family-based-genomic-analysis-for-early-career-researchers/

The registration ends on 28 February 2026.

28 January 2026

About

Mental illness runs in families.
The FAMILY consortium aims to improve the life of mentally-ill persons and their families:

  • firstly focus on better understanding the mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of mental illness from parent to child.
  • studying the family context, we will try to build models to predict whether mental illness will be transmitted across generations or not.
  • FAMILY will also address key ethical and social issues raised by risk prediction for clinical use, such as the right not to know, and the risk of stigma.
  • Lastly, together with the family advocacy and support organisation EUFAMI and the not-for-profit association ESCAP, we will try to increase awareness and foster active engagement of families, and translate new discoveries to patients and mental health care professionals.

Read more

FAMILY translates current barriers into 3 themes of enquiry, with the following 6 project objectives:

Theme 1

Understanding intergenerational transmission of risk

  • Estimate the contribution of genetic and environmental routes of intergenerational transmission of risk from parent to offspring throughout the life course.
  • Identify causal factors underlying genetic and environmental routes of risk transmission and resilience.
Theme 2

Predicting risk of mental illness in a familial context

  • Identify and validate genetic, epigenetic, and brain imaging biomarkers for risk or resilience to mental disease in the family.
  • Develop and validate a multimodal risk prediction model and a normative modelling framework to predict, at the individual level, who is at risk of developing a mental disorder.
Theme 3

Creating societal impact and end-user engagement

  • Map and evaluate social and ethical consequences of risk prediction for clinical use.
  • Increase awareness and foster active engagement of families and translate new discoveries to patients and mental health care professionals.

Impact

Scientific

New breakthrough scientific discoveries on the intergenerational transmission of risk of mental illness and risk prediction within a family context, pushing the field forward towards first clinical implementation of family-based prediction tools by 2035.

Clinical

Ethical considerations regarding risk prediction support mental health care professionals and patients and their families in clinical decision-making. Awareness on the role of transmission of risk of mental health problems stimulates the integration of child/adolescent and adult mental health care services, leading to improved care for high-risk families.

Societal

Improved mental health literacy in vulnerable high-risk families, resulting in increased engagement with their own mental health and earlier recognition of mental health problems, leading to earlier identification and preventive intervention. Improved quality of life of vulnerable high-risk families because of earlier recognition of emerging problems, earlier and focused preventive interventions, and less stigma and discrimination.

Economic

Earlier identification and preventive intervention of mental health problems prevents exacerbation of these problems, resulting in reduced mental health care cost in the longer term.