Regional Organization for Academic and Clinical Research in Psychiatry

ORACLE aims to deploy the CALYPSO programme at the regional level in order to structure a regional research network in psychiatry and mental health.

CALYPSO is today a structural foundation for academic research in psychiatry conducted in Lille. The programme is the result of a close collaboration between three Lille-based laboratories: Lille Neuroscience & Cognition (U1172, Univ. Lille, Inserm, CHU de Lille), SCALab (UMR 9193, Univ. Lille, CNRS) and CRIStAL (UMR 9189, Univ. Lille, CNRS).

Despite this dynamic, research conducted in this context — like most academic work in psychiatry — is concentrated within a single university hospital (CHU). The sector-based organisation of care means that protocols carried out at CHU only concern patients attached to the local hospital sector, or very specific patients seen as part of the CHU’s referral missions. This limits the representativeness of the populations studied and reduces access to research for many people affected by psychiatric disorders.

This situation considerably slows the advancement of knowledge: it cannot account for the full range of clinical profiles encountered in practice. Some specificities are therefore neither studied nor taken into account in the diagnostic or therapeutic advances stemming from research. Maintaining this gap between research and the reality of care pathways widens a divide between centralised academic research and on-the-ground clinical practice — where the majority of patients are actually followed.

The ORACLE project aims specifically to bridge this gap by building a more inclusive, standardized regional research dynamic that is directly connected to healthcare practices. It extends the CALYPSO program by expanding it across a regional network of harmonized experimental sites integrated into mental health facilities.

• Broadening patient inclusion beyond the University Hospital (CHU) to include varied territorial contexts (urban, semi-rural, and rural)
• Accounting for the diversity of regional care pathways
• Improving the robustness of results through more representative cohorts
• Promoting a faster transfer of research findings into clinical practice to refine diagnostics, better anticipate evolutionary trajectories, and offer more personalized care
• Structuring a solid and sustainable regional clinical research network capable of hosting new scientific projects beyond the CALYPSO program

In addition to its institutional and financial partners, ORACLE relies on the Regional Federation for Research in Psychiatry and Mental Health Hauts-de-France (F2RSM Psy), a regional network of healthcare institutions with activity in psychiatry, which promotes research in psychiatry and mental health across the Hauts-de-France region.

The project also draws on PLUTON (Projet de Liaison Universitaire du Territoire du Nord), led by Prof. Horn, a member of the INTERACTIONS team. A Psy WebTV video was produced for the inauguration of the PLUTON project.