(Brussels, Vienna, 1 June 2026) – The project, entitled SAMPO (Scalable Approach to Mental Illness and Self-Harm Prevention Online), is receiving funding from the EU’s Horizon Europe programme to develop and evaluate a new digital approach to promoting mental health and preventing self-harm among adolescents and young adults. SAMPO is coordinated by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and brings together eight partners from six European countries, including the Medical University of Vienna with two teams, one led by Paul Plener from the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and one led by Judit Simon from the Department of Health Economics, Center for Public Health.
As part of the four-year project, a tiered and individualised digital programme will be developed, adapted and scientifically evaluated. The aim is to make mental health support services more accessible, scalable and better aligned with the lives of young people. SAMPO addresses a key challenge: many existing mental health services are fragmented, focused on specific disorders and have not yet been sufficiently integrated into the everyday lives and education of young people.
To address this need, SAMPO combines three key components into a single digital platform:
• an e-screening tool for the early detection of mental health issues,
• a person-centred algorithm for personalised support, and
• digital risk and resilience toolboxes.
The programme is being tested as part of a large-scale randomised controlled trial in education, training and workplace contexts with around 12,600 participants. This includes adolescents aged 13–18, higher education students aged 18–30 and working adults in this age group. Young people and relevant stakeholders are actively involved in the development process through workshops, focus groups and pilot phases. This participatory approach aims to ensure that the digital services are designed to be accessible, inclusive and culturally relevant.
SAMPO is coordinated by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Belgium and brings together eight partners from six European countries. The consortium combines expertise from universities, higher education institutions and companies specialising in digital health solutions and communication. The partners include the Karolinska Institutet (Sweden), the University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd (Germany), the University of Bern (Switzerland), the Karel de Grote Hogeschool (Belgium), the Medical University of Vienna (Austria), Reconwell GmbH (Germany) and LOBA – Globaz S.A. (Portugal).
The Austrian clinical team led by Paul Plener (Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, MedUni Vienna) is focusing in particular on risk assessment and the development of treatment pathways for crisis interventions. "The global rise in mental health conditions among young people presents us with the challenge of creating scalable approaches to promote mental health, which must be well-tested. This can only be achieved by joining forces in a project of this scale at EU level," says Plener, highlighting the initiative’s enormous significance.
The health economics team led by Judit Simon (Department of Health Economics, Center for Public Health) is focusing on the value assessment, scalability and sustainability of SAMPO across the participating countries and at EU-level. “It is important that future mental health solutions are effective, efficient, inclusive and sustainable at large scale. All of these are explicit aims of SAMPO,” says Simon.
With EU funding of just under five million euros, SAMPO contributes to European efforts to strengthen mental health, promote resilience and establish early and more individualised prevention services for young people.
Funding statement and disclaimer:
Funded by the European Union. The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the European Union or the European Research Agency. Neither the European Union nor the funding authority can be held responsible for this.