Mental health disorders pose a massive economic and societal burden. Emerging early in development and resulting in long-term disability, neurodevelopmental dysfunctions (NDD) compromise the quality of life of millions of Europeans. The purpose of the Neo-PRISM-C ETN is (1) to train Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in applying the Research Domain Criteria, a novel framework for understanding psychopathology, to the study of the mechanisms and treatments of NDD. It aims (2) to train ESRs from multiple disciplines (psychology, neuroscience, data science) in state-of-the-art and transferable skills for innovating the study of brain-behavior relationships in NDD, in the context of a systems-based, trans-diagnostic theoretical frame. This ETN will also (3) support training in designing evidence-based, individualized treatments of learning, behavioral, and social maladjustment, bridging across diagnostic categories. Towards these goals, we have assembled a trans-sectoral European network with expertise in cognitive, social, educational, clinical, and emotion research and in training ESRs. Six research, training and management work packages (WPs) pursue these goals. WP1 comprises innovative projects, investigating risk and protective factors that span across NDD diagnostic categories (autism, learning, emotional difficulties) and linking to healthcare industry and education. WP2 examines systems-level brain development to identify biological substrates of specific dysfunctions. WP3 applies this knowledge to develop new multi-modal interventions to address domains of impairment. The academic, industrial and clinical partners collaborate across themes, offering ESRs project-specific secondments, supervision, workshops, summer school and courses on research, transferable and entrepreneurial skills. Neo-PRISM-C is expected to further understanding of NDD and improve the competitiveness of EU health professions, providing the market with highly-skilled researchers and clinicians.

Individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) show highly heterogeneous behavioural, cognitive and brain profiles with much larger overlap between, e.g., dyslexia, dyscalculia and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), than assumed by current diagnostic approaches. It remains unclear how the individual profiles of deficits and strengths result in child specific idiosyncratic development. Besides relying on discrete categories, the current diagnostic approaches assume relatively stable NDD symptoms across development while recent findings suggest more dynamic changes in the symptoms across development. The interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral Tools4NDDs consortium aims to employ recent technological advancements to better understand the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of NDDs. Our consortium utilizes the advances in transdiagnostic research, as well as the potential of digital technological solutions to improve diagnostic and intervention tools for NDDs. The general objective is to better integrate the transdiagnostic framework in translating empirical findings to available and emerging tools while taking into account children’s divergent sociodemograpic backgrounds. Knowledge transfer, training and research on this is carried out through secondments, online work groups and library as well as yearly workshops. Our transdiagnostic approach has great potential in improving both the understanding of the dynamical mechanisms underlying NDDs, and ultimately, the development of personalized diagnostic practice and intervention designs. As long-term outcomes, to promote much needed innovations towards early, personalized, and effective identification and support for children with NDDs, thereby improving their quality-of-life.