Dr Samuel J Swidzinski

From patient to researcher to founder.

I have bipolar disorder. I went from suicidal and unable to function to becoming a doctor and founding a government-backed company — driven by one belief: relevance is essential to mental-health innovation.

PhD in cognition & bipolar disorder, King’s College London. Founder of Schologists. Creator of the concept of patient relevance.

Get in touch Read the idea ↓
Dr Samuel J Swidzinski

By the numbers

£0M+ Schologists revenue & grant funding
0 Grant-funded research programmes
0 Peer-reviewed papers
0 Years of lived experience

UKRI-backed (top 3%)  ·  EPO patent pending

Highlights

  • SchologistsFounder & Chief Innovation Officer — turning psychological research into products; UKRI-backed, EPO patent pending
  • ResearchPhD in cognition & bipolar disorder — Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London · 4 peer-reviewed papers
  • GrantsLead applicant, co-applicant and patient-relevance advisor — Wellcome, UKRI, Maudsley Charity
  • The bookWinning the War with Bipolar — reviewed by Prof Wendy Burn & Prof Ahmed Hankir · read by Sir Robin Murray
  • RecognitionVisiting Lecturer, Imperial College London · Reviewer, The Lancet Psychiatry · Session chair, Royal College of Psychiatrists
  • Supported bythe NHS Innovation Service · collaboration with Imperial College London

01 The idea

Patient relevance

An engineer engineers. A researcher researches. An innovator builds. But when someone with lived experience is invited into mental-health research and innovation, their role is often described vaguely: to “be involved.”

That vagueness matters. It can leave researchers and innovators unsure why a contributor is in the room, and contributors unsure what they are there to do. Too often, involvement becomes a process rather than a purpose.

I call that purpose patient relevance: the work of keeping mental-health research and innovation anchored to the outcomes that matter to the people it is meant to help.

Patient relevance is not about making research kinder at the edges, or innovation more inclusive in name only. It is about making both more valid at the centre. When patients help shape what a study asks, what a tool does, what a service prioritises, and what success is measured against, we are more likely to build things that actually change lives.

I did not arrive at this idea in the abstract. I arrived as a participant.

“I have been the participant ticking the boxes and the contributor helping to redraw them. The difference between the two is not effort or sincerity. It is purpose.”

From participant to researcher to founder

In 2013, after years of turmoil, I was diagnosed with bipolar I disorder. Researchers at King’s College London helped me build a life I could run — and that experience shaped everything that followed.

I later took part in CRiB, a trial of cognitive remediation in bipolar disorder. I could complete the timed tasks it measured, but I still could not hold down a job or reliably look after myself. The trial measured something real, but not what separated an illness contained from a life regained.

When CRiB grew into the full CRiB2 trial, lived-experience input — including mine from the application stage — helped shift the primary outcome to psychosocial functioning: the things that actually make up a life.

That move, from being measured to helping decide what gets measured, is where patient relevance comes from. I went on to complete a PhD at King’s, write a book about living with bipolar disorder, and found Schologists to build the tools I wished had existed.

Read the full Personal View →

02 Built

Schologists

I founded Schologists to build the kind of support I once needed — turning psychological research into things people can actually use: a clinical-grade cognitive platform, and accredited educational programmes that teach young people how their own minds work.

Veyra

The flagship is Veyra: an adaptive cognitive assessment and remediation platform for adolescents with ADHD, designed to deliver meaningful support while young people sit on long NHS waiting lists rather than waiting in a vacuum. Veyra is backed by UK Research & Innovation, patent-pending with the European Patent Office, and being developed with Imperial College London and the NHS Innovation Service. It is patient relevance as a product: built around the outcomes that matter to the people who’ll use it.

Educational programmes — metacognition

Alongside the platform, Schologists delivers British Accreditation Council–accredited programmes in metacognition — “thinking about thinking” — in partnership with universities and schools, plus 1:1 executive-function coaching grounded in cognitive remediation research. Students learn the theory of how memory, attention and motivation work, how to apply it, and how to practise it in their own lives — cognitive science handed directly to the people who need it.

£1M+ revenue & grant funding·UKRI-backed (top 3%)·EPO patent pending

Visit Schologists →

03 Track record

£30M+ in grant-funded research informed — as a patient-relevance contributor and advisor.

Combined value of grant-funded research programmes I’ve contributed to in a patient-relevance capacity — not funding personally raised.

Wellcome·UKRI·Maudsley Charity

I have worked on grants funded by Wellcome, UKRI and the Maudsley Charity — as lead applicant or co-applicant on several, and as patient-relevance advisor on other primary grants. A few core examples, and why they matter:

  • Innovate UK Smart Grant — UKRI

    Awardee · Schologists / Veyra

    Government backing — awarded to roughly the top 3% of applicants — to turn the research into products people can use.

  • Maudsley Charity — patient-centred care of bipolar disorder

    Co-applicant

    Funding care designed around the outcomes patients themselves prioritise — patient relevance applied to clinical services.

  • CRiB2 — Cognitive Remediation in Bipolar — multi-site RCT, ~£1.9M, King’s College London

    Patient-relevance researcher · on the team from application stage

    Lived-experience input helped shift the trial’s primary outcome to psychosocial functioning — the work patient relevance grew out of.

  • Doctoral research — ESRC LISS DTP (UKRI), IoPPN, King’s College London

    Awardee / PhD researcher

    The evidence base: cognitive impairment and decline in bipolar disorder, studied from the inside of the field and the condition.

Advisory King’s College London × TU Dresden research collaboration in cognition — patient-relevance consultant.

04 Published

Peer-reviewed research

  1. Catalán A, Swidzinski S, McCutcheon RA, … Young AH, Murray RM, Jauhar S. The proportion of people with primary affective disorders presenting to early intervention services: systematic review and meta-analysis. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 2026. doi:10.1192/bjp.2026.10602

  2. Swidzinski S, et al. Domain-specific cognitive function in euthymic bipolar disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Medicine, 2025. First author · DOI to follow

  3. Tsapekos D, … Swidzinski S, … Burdick KE, Young AH. Estimating cognitive impairment in bipolar disorder: should we account for premorbid IQ? Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 2025. doi:10.1111/acps.70000

  4. Tsapekos D, Strawbridge R, Cella M, … Swidzinski S, … Young AH. Cognitive Remediation in Bipolar (CRiB2): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial. BMC Psychiatry, 2023. doi:10.1186/s12888-023-05327-1

ORCID: 0000-0001-5782-1289 →

05 Writing

Winning the War with Bipolar

Winning the War with Bipolar by Samuel J Swidzinski — book cover

My book, Winning the War with Bipolar (with George Dee, 2020), is the personal companion to the research — for anyone living with bipolar, anyone who loves someone who is, and the professionals who support them. The lived-experience half of the same story this whole site tells.

Reviewed by Professor Wendy Burn, former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and Professor Ahmed Hankir — and read by Sir Robin Murray.

“I would recommend this both for people with bipolar and those caring for them. It is clearly and carefully written and is helpfully divided into different sections. As an experienced psychiatrist it gave me a new insight into what it is like to be a patient with bipolar and what is most helpful in the management of this condition.”

Prof Wendy Burn — former President, Royal College of Psychiatrists

“Sam is the author of the masterpiece, ‘Winning the War with Bipolar’ — my favourite mental health book.”

Prof Ahmed Hankir — psychiatrist & author
Read on Amazon → Listen on Audible →

ISBN 9798680138632

06 Speaking

Talks & workshops

I speak on patient relevance, the design of cognitive-support environments, and lived experience as a research method — to academic, clinical, and public audiences.

Making Research Relevant Through Lived Experience (Bipolar Disorder) — Dr Samuel J Swidzinski
  • Technische Universität Dresden — “Patient Relevance: The Future of Lived Experience Research” Conference presentation — part of the King’s College London × TU Dresden collaboration.
  • South London & Maudsley NHS — London Early Intervention Network — “Improving Access to Early Intervention Services” Workshop on the care of people with bipolar and affective disorders in EI services, with Dr Sameer Jauhar — June 2026.
  • Mental Health Mission — “Where Art Thou, Affective Psychoses?” With Dr Sameer Jauhar — to early intervention services across the UK.
  • Conference talk, Switzerland — “Affective Disorder Prevalence in First-Episode Psychosis”
  • BFX Festival, Bournemouth University — “Environments Building Cognitive Support” Arts and science meeting as a clinical necessity.
  • Royal College of Psychiatrists Chaired sessions.

Invite me to speak →

Get in touch

Building something that should measure what matters? Let’s talk.

Open to investment, collaboration, and speaking.

or email sam@schologists.co.uk
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