Jim van Os, MD, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Public Health at Utrecht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands and Visiting Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at King’s College, Institute of Psychiatry, London. He trained in France, Spain, the UK, and the Netherlands and is since 2014 on the Thomson-Reuter Web of Science list of the "World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds of our Time". 

He is best known for his work on how to conceptualize mental suffering in a way that is not only scientifically valid but also acceptable and productive for users; and on how to organize mental health services that cater not only to the clinical but also the social and existential needs of those who require assistance. He created the Dutch User Research Centre, where people with lived experience carry out research relevant to users, thus producing experiential knowledge to co-create novel mental health care approaches in Europe. 

One of his first papers was "Schizophrenia Sans Frontières", published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 1993, in which he showed, in a comparison between France and the UK, that the conceptualization, treatment, and care organization for psychotic disorders was very different in the two countries. He followed this up in 1994 with the BMJ publication: "Caring for Mentally Ill People in Europe" in which he compared mental health care systems across European countries.

He is a member of the Royal Dutch Academy for sciences (2011), a Fellow of King's College London (2016), and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Schizophrenia International Research Society (2023).

More about his scientific background: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jim-Van-Os

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