In 2023, we offered a total of £120,000 in research grants. We received 31 applications which came to a total value of almost £1.2 million meaning that we had to reject around 90% of proposals. Read more about how BACP funds research.
To be transparent about who we fund we're committed to publishing demographic data about the Principal Investigators for the applications we received and funded. Read BACP's report about demographic data.
We funded two collaborative research projects and one secondary data analysis project. More information about each of these projects and the work the teams are doing can be found below:
University of Roehampton, London (lead institution)
Project title: Co-Development and Validation of a Young Person’s Therapy Preference Measure
Project Lead: Prof Mick Cooper
This research aims to co-develop, with young people (YP) and therapists, the first measure to reliably assess YP’s preferences for psychotherapy and counselling. The measure will be able to indicate teenage clients’ therapy preferences across a range of dimensions and will be suitable for use in counselling with YP in school, voluntary and health sector contexts, as well as a wide range of other therapeutic settings. The tool will also be validated for use in research allowing researchers, for the first time, to address a wide range of important and unanswered questions.
This project stood out to our Grants Peer Review Panel due to the robust methodology, which utilises a multistage, mixed methods approach and incorporates a range of national and international collaborative partners, including YP with lived experience of therapy. The project was also highlighted for its relevance, specifically; meeting four of BACP’s strategic priorities and addressing an identifiable need in the counselling provision for young people. This was noted as being particularly timely given the mental health needs of young people in the post pandemic time period, creating the opportunity to generate invaluable data regarding YPs’ therapeutic journeys and the potential for long term impact on practice and research within the field.
Newcastle University (lead institution)
Project title: The Roles of Epistemic Mistrust and Alliance Rupture in Dissatisfied Dropouts from Psychotherapy
Project Lead: Dr Sally O’Keeffe and Co-Project Lead: Dr Elizabeth Li
The research team aims to undertake secondary analysis of psychotherapy session recordings from the IMPACT study – a randomised controlled trial of psychotherapies for adolescent depression – to explore how epistemic mistrust may manifest within therapy sessions. The team will look at its impact on the therapeutic alliance and how therapists can effectively repair alliance ruptures with young people who display epistemic mistrust and may be at risk of dropout from therapy.
The proposed research project stood out to the peer review panel for its potential to significantly inform counselling and psychotherapy practice by further elucidating how to identify and meaningfully address factors that may negatively impact on the therapeutic alliance in order to avoid dropout and promote better therapy outcomes for young people.
Overall, the Grants Peer Review Panel felt that this project fully aligns with BACP’s strategic priorities as it can generate findings that will be relevant for practitioners working with young people across different therapy settings, including schools. In addition, the panel highlighted the research team’s strong consideration of issues relating to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) through the inclusion of psychotherapy cases with young people from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, as well as their clear plan and commitment to involve young people with lived experience across the project design, data analysis and dissemination stages.
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow (lead institution)
Project title: Free labour and precarity in mental health provision: trainee counsellors’ experiences across the UK
Project Lead: Dr Mariya Ivancheva and Co-Project Lead: Dr Jennifer O’Neil
This collaborative research project examines the rise of service models and mental health provision in the UK based on the free, precarious labour of trainee counsellors and psychotherapists. Through interviews, this research aims to explore the experiences of UK trainee counsellors as being free voluntary service providers, and the real-life cost of their placements, career prospects and perceived effects for service users.
Questions around how trainee programmes maintain quality therapeutic relationships in precariously staffed services, how trainee therapists negotiate expected free labour while managing costs associated with being trainees and the extent to which working for free impacts the prospect of entering a career that is secure and paid will be addressed. The findings will add to the existing debates around therapy training, skills and competencies, counselling education, regulatory frameworks and future guidelines for therapy training.
Our Grants Peer Review Panel commended the originality of this project due to its focus on trainee counsellors’ experiences. This project was also highlighted by the panel for its relevance to addressing BACP’s strategic priorities around professional training and the education sector. The panel stated that the project stood out for its significance in addressing the socio-economic context of increased precarity, which is timely as a result of the current cost-of-living crisis and need for therapeutic support. The methods were also deemed as appropriate to address the research questions and aims, with the sampling and recruitment strategy being particularly robust while acknowledging where there are opportunities to address EDI.
See also

Research awards and grants
Encouraging research into counselling and psychotherapy

Promoting research
Research is important for clients, for practitioners and politically to continue to demonstrate that counselling changes lives.

BACP International Research Conference
A leading international event for researchers and practitioners