We've Evolved!

We are excited to announce that the UMass Chan Medical School's (UMass Chan) Department of Psychiatry was awarded a new contract for a Center of Excellence for Public Mental Health Services and Implementation Research, continuing 25 years of funding from the state Department of Mental Health (DMH), Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As of October 1, 2018, the former UMass Chan Systems and Psychosocial Advances Research Center (SPARC) is now the Implementation Science and Practice Advances Research Center, or iSPARC

The new iSPARC builds on the demonstrated strengths of the Department of Psychiatry's previous research centers of excellence by:

1. Adding investigators from the UMass Chan Department of Quantitative Health Sciences and its matchless expertise in implementation science and engagement of underrepresented groups, and
2. Adding investigators from Boston University's Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation and its 35+ years of implementation and services research focused on the recovery of adults with serious mental illness.

iSPARC will work in close partnership with the DMH and its stakeholders to use the tools of research to improve public mental health in the future.