Maria Milenova

Maria Milenova

Maria Milenova joined the KIS team as a Health Services Researcher in 2024. She is currently working on the evaluation of the clinical effectiveness of mental health services within South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

Maria joined King’s College London in 2017 working with Prof Sir Graham Thornicroft at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, and has coordinated several global mental health research initiatives - the MASC study (Adverse sequelae of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health care in seven LMICs); The INDIGO Network (an international collaboration of research experts committed to the reduction of stigma and discrimination related to mental ill health); The Lancet Commission on Ending Stigma and Discrimination in Mental Health; and the Commission Partnership Implementation (CIP) group.

Graduating from Complutense University of Madrid (BSs and MSc) as a political scientist, Maria is completing her PhD at the Centre for Mental Health Policy and Evaluation. Her research investigates the design and implementation of exit strategies in global health interventions funded by Official Development Assistance and private philanthropy in low and middle-income countries.

Prior to joining King’s, Maria worked as a Junior Policy Officer at the Directorate-General for International Partnerships at the European Commission in Brussels.

Research interests

• Implementation science
• Global mental health
• International development cooperation
• Interdisciplinary policymaking
• Exit strategies

Teaching

• Global Mental Health MSc (Theory to Practice module)
• Psychology BSc (Women’s Mental Health module)
• Mental Health Studies MSc, leading seminars, workshops and assessments

Expertise and public engagement

• Maria managed the London branch of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP, 2020-2022), a non-partisan organisation which develops the leadership skills of young policymakers.
• Funded by Research England and alongside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), she organised a conference titled “UK’s International Offer: Opportunities and Challenges for Realising the Development-Diplomacy Dividend” (2021) between early career researchers from UK universities and early to mid-career civil servants from the FCDO.
• In 2022 Maria became a Parliamentary Researcher for the UK House of Lords, a scheme sponsored by King’s Policy Institute. She was appointed as Senior Parliamentary Researcher to the Office of Baroness Hunt, which then led to the establishment of the ESRC funded Research to Policy Mechanism, focused on improving LGBTQ+ life outcomes in the UK. The project is currently led by Dr Feldman and Dr Maine

Contact details

maria.milenova@kcl.ac.uk

Latest papers

• Thornicroft G, Sunkel C, Milenova M; Commission Implementation Partnership. How to stop stigma: implementing The Lancet Commission on ending stigma and discrimination in mental health. Lancet Psychiatry. 2024 Feb;11(2):88-89. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(23)00374-7. Epub 2023 Nov 23. PMID: 38008101.
• M Milenova, S Parry, N Mehta, and G Thornicroft. Stigma and Discrimination in relation to People with Mental Health Conditions and Psychiatric Institutions. In Ethics in Psychiatry. European Contributions, 2nd edition, Springer (in press)
• Thusini, S., Milenova, M., Nahabedian, N., Grey, D. B., Soukup, D. T. & Henderson, D. C., 8 Jun 2022, In: BMC Health Services Research. 22, 1, 44 p., 1083. Identifying and understanding benefits associated with return-on-investment from large-scale healthcare Quality Improvement programmes: an Integrative Systematic Literature Review.
• Thusini S, Milenova M, Grey B, Soukup TA, Henderson C. (2022) The development of the concept of return-on-investment from large-scale Quality Improvement programmes in healthcare: An Integrative Systematic Literature Review. BMC Health Services Research.
• Thornicroft, G., Sunkel, C., Alikhon Aliev, A., Baker, S., Brohan, E., el Chammay, R., Davies, K., Demissie, M., Duncan, J., Fekadu, W., Gronholm, P. C., Guerrero, Z., Gurung, D., Habtamu, K., Hanlon, C., Heim, E., Henderson, C., Hijazi, Z., Hoffman, C., Hosny, N., M., Milenova & 23 others, 22 Oct 2022, The Lancet Commission on ending stigma and discrimination in mental health. In: The Lancet. 400, 10361, p. 1438-1480

Read Maria’s full research profile here