SIRS Awards the 2025 Research Harmonisation Award
The Schizophrenia International Research Society (SIRS) has awarded the 2025 Research Harmonisation Award: To develop an international consensus definition and assessment tools for recovery in patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.
The 2025 RHA Topic:
Methods in any topic relevant to schizophrenia research (except topics covered by previous awards).
A Message from Dr. Catalina Mourgues-Codern, Ph.D., Associate Research Scientist, Yale University
We are honored to receive this award to advance diagnostic harmonization for Clinical High Risk for Psychosis (CHR-P). At stake is a simple, shared language that helps young people be recognized earlier and supported more consistently—across clinics, countries, and cultures. Our multinational team—researchers, clinicians, trainees, industry partners, regulators, and people with lived experience—will build on the NIMH-led Positive SYmptoms and Diagnostic Criteria for the CAARMS Harmonized with the SIPS (PSYCHS) initiative, which unified 15 positive-symptom assessment criteria across SIPS and CAARMS. Important diagnostic differences remain—particularly around onset, duration, and functional impairment. Many of us are also contributing to the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® - Schizophrenia (AMP SCZ) Observational Study—the largest, most deeply phenotyped CHR-P cohort to date—and to ongoing FDA qualification work for PSYCHS. Together, these efforts position us to close the remaining gaps and co-create a framework that is scientifically rigorous, clinically usable, and shaped with people with lived experience to ensure feasibility, acceptability, and equity.
We will: (1) synthesize empirical and clinical evidence via a targeted literature review and systematic analyses of Accelerating AMP SCZ) data (CHR-P subgroups, symptom dimensions, comorbidities, illness trajectories), identify key evidence gaps, and prepare structured background materials; and (2) run a structured, international Delphi process (≥8 countries) spanning researchers, clinicians, lived-experience experts, regulators, and industry partners. Through iterative rounds—with cognitive debriefing for clarity and feasibility—we will refine and endorse a consensus diagnostic definition of CHR-P, and translate it into implementation guidance, decision trees, training materials, and reporting standards suitable for research and regulatory contexts.
A clear, harmonized CHR-P diagnostic definition will reduce ambiguity, enable fair comparisons across studies and settings, guide earlier and more consistent care, and accelerate innovation in trials and clinical translation. Most importantly, it will give clinicians, families, and people with lived experience a common map—one that shortens the path from first concern to effective support and brings greater clarity and hope to the CHR-P community.
