Professor Luis Salvador-Carulla is Professor of Mental Health and Deputy Director of the Health Research Institute, University of Canberra. He has been an advisor on mental health policy to the regional Governments of Catalonia and Andalucia in Spain, the Spanish Ministry of Health, the European Commission and the World Health Organisation.

Among other roles, he has coordinated several national and international projects related to planetary wellbeing, including the European Commission project eDESDE-LTC for the development of an international classification of services to assess unmet needs as part of the GLOCAL program at the University of Canberra.

His research interests lie in the development of social and healthcare policy, focusing on incorporating new paradigms of care and decision-making. He is particularly interested in ‘evidence-informed’ approaches, which integrate data and expert knowledge to view social and healthcare systems as dynamic and complex ecosystems. He explores innovative analysis methods such as realist synthesis, logical models for multidimensional categorisation, and systems that aid in impact analysis and decision-making monitoring.

He received the Tom Trauer Evaluation and Research Award for his contribution to mental health service research in Australia in 2022, and the 2023 Malaspina Award for the EMPOWER project, a joint collaboration funded by NHMRC Australia and Horizon 2020 to produce a digital tool aimed at improving mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.