Introducing the CIMTR Strategic Plan 2020-2025

Published: 7 December 2020 at 11:30

We are excited to introduce the new strategic plan for the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research (CIMTR), outlining the aims and focus of our research over the next five years.

The strategic plan's vision is 'Improving health and wellbeing through advancing music therapy research'. The aims of the research institute have developed around building research excellence and impact, supporting outstanding researchers and practitioners, and enhancing the social, economic and cultural impact of music therapy research.

We have also re-defined our research focus into five primary areas:

• Healthy ageing and dementia: supporting the development of strategies, methods, tools and technologies to enhance the prevention and clinical care of people with dementia
• Neuroscience of music therapy: using multidisciplinary research to improve understandings of how the human brain functions and to explain how and why music therapy can help treat brain and mental health disorders
• Neurorehabilitation and stroke: progressing the enquiry into music-based interventions for stroke rehabilitation from virtually unknown in the UK towards large RCTs and the implementation of new neurologic music therapy
• Mental health: investigating how music therapy practice can impact the unmet needs of people experiencing mental ill health; we have focused on music therapy practice in adult mental health settings and for people with substance use conditions
• Children, young people and families: working alongside families, practitioners and academics to advocate for music’s role of promoting neurological development, providing a framework for social interaction and the development of social skills for children and young people

We look forward to seeing what the next five years bring!