3  THE WAY FORWARD
I would like to suggest a multi‐pronged approach. Firstly, we need a strong advocacy for mental health. Advocacy could be more effective if the researchers joined in the efforts by their universities or relevant national and international societies. The global economic crisis of 2008 revealed a significant effect of financial crisis on mental health across countries (Gunnell et al., 1998). Besides, the association between mental health and COVID‐19 has also been established with reasonable degree of certainty (Galea, Merchant, & Lurie, 2020). Advocacy measures, anchored on evidence and experience, at the local, regional, and at the global level must be undertaken to encourage the domestic governments to invest in mental health. The national governments could also dedicate seed funds for pilot studies for ECRs, with mental health as one of the priority research areas. Secondly, the ECRs with common research interests and facing similar challenges could collaborate and develop interest groups or consortiums. The pandemic has unfolded an unlimited opportunity of virtual interactions and consequent opportunities for collaboration. The international and national societies dedicated to mental health could provide the platform and play a significant role in helping ECRs to bring together by early career networks. The WPA and World Association for Social Psychiatry already have networks of young psychiatrists. We need more such networks of early career professionals in other sub‐specialties of psychiatry and across regions. The Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists (PRCP) could encourage greater professional collaboration among ECRs. Finally, the senior and more experienced researchers might initiate a mentor‐mentee program across medical disciplines beyond their national or continental borders. Again, the international societies and organizations could come forward for the mentorship program. The senior researchers could ensure direct collaboration with the ECRs to foster the next generation of researchers. This will be especially useful for ECR from LMIC, with a limited scope of worthwhile mentorship. The feasibility and success of such endeavors were empirically validated (Merritt, Jack, Mangezi, Chibanda, & Abas, 2019).
A proactive, concerted, and empathic attitude of the national governments and senior researchers might actually be able to address some of the challenges encountered or likely to be encountered by the ECR from LMIC. The COVID‐19 situation will subside eventually, but a collaborative partnership forged during these times would benefit the researchers in times to come.