Children and young people with learning difficulties are set to benefit from a new £5 million research and support centre at the University in association with the charity Mindroom.

The Salvesen Mindroom Centre to Understand and Resolve Learning Difficulties will be the first of its kind in the UK.

Funding for the virtual centre has been generously donated to the University by businessman and philanthropist Mr Alastair Salvesen, Chairman of Dawnfresh Seafoods Ltd, and his wife, Elizabeth.

The Salvesen Mindroom centre is a collaboration between the University, Mindroom – a Scottish charity helping children and young people with learning difficulties – and the NHS.

Staff at the new centre will work closely with key partners in the NHS, Education and Children and Families services.

They will seek to advance research, diagnosis, assessment and treatment. They will also progress intervention and community outreach for children and young people with learning difficulties.

The centre will support public understanding of these conditions thereby complementing Mindroom’s existing training and education programmes.

Researchers and clinicians will also work with and draw on expertise from existing University of Edinburgh centres.

These include the Patrick Wild Centre for Research into Autism, Fragile X Syndrome and Intellectual Disabilities, the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic and the Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Research.

More information about the new Centre is available here