Federal Agencies

Australia became the world's first nation to reschedule psilocybin and MDMA as Schedule 8 controlled medicines in February 2023, permitting authorised psychiatrists to prescribe psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression and MDMA for PTSD effective July 2023. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) leads the regulatory framework for these therapies under a tightly supervised Authorised Prescriber scheme.

The Canadian Forces Health Services Centre Ottawa is the primary military healthcare facility serving the National Capital Region, providing comprehensive medical, mental health, and occupational health care to Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel and their families. The centre supports CAF members with psychiatric services relevant to trauma and PTSD, areas in which the Canadian military has shown growing interest in ketamine-based and psychedelic-assisted therapies as emerging treatment options.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is Canada’s federal health research funding agency, disbursing over $1 billion annually across 13 virtual institutes—including the Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction, which has funded landmark psychedelic medicine trials such as ketamine for bipolar depression at Braxia Scientific and psilocybin-assisted therapy studies at multiple Canadian universities. As the primary source of government funding for psychedelic research in Canada, CIHR plays a pivotal role in building the evidence base for novel psychiatric treatments.

The Chief Scientist Office (CSO) of the Scottish Government funds NHS and health research across Scotland, and has supported University of Edinburgh evaluability work on ketamine-assisted therapy and the development of the Scottish Psychedelic Research Group to build Scotland’s capacity for psychedelic-assisted therapy studies.

The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) is a U.S. Department of Defense biomedical research programme that allocates congressional appropriations to fund high-impact, high-risk studies addressing military and veteran health priorities. It has funded clinical trials of psychedelic-assisted treatments for PTSD and traumatic brain injury in Service Members through its Defense Medical Research and Development Program, with over $1.27 billion appropriated for FY2026.

Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) is the country's primary public funding agency for scientific research, providing grants, scholarships, and R&D support to universities and research institutions nationwide. CNPq ranks among the top global funders of psychedelic science, having supported seminal ayahuasca clinical trials, pharmacological studies, and productivity fellowships for researchers who established Brazil as a world leader in psychedelic psychiatry.

CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) is Brazil's federal agency for graduate education improvement, providing scholarships, postdoctoral fellowships, and institutional research grants to universities nationwide. Ranked among the top-six global funders of psychedelic research in a 2023 Scopus analysis, CAPES has financed ayahuasca neuroscience studies, clinical investigations, and postdoctoral programmes that underpin Brazil's internationally recognised psychedelic research ecosystem.

The Czech Health Research Council (AZV ČR) is an organisational component of the Czech Ministry of Health responsible for funding applied health research, distributing over 1 billion CZK annually across approximately 90 supported projects per year. It provided the primary grant for the PSIKET001 trial — a landmark double-blind comparison of psilocybin versus ketamine for treatment-resistant depression at the National Institute of Mental Health — with a total budget of 12 million CZK.

The Georgia Department of Veterans Services (GDVS) is a Georgia state agency that assists veterans and their dependents in accessing federal VA benefits, healthcare, educational, and social services. The department supports Georgia veterans' access to emerging mental health treatments including ketamine therapy through VA community care partnerships at the Joseph Maxwell Cleland Atlanta VA Medical Center and affiliated clinics.

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is the pioneering Western government funder of large-scale psychedelic clinical trials, having provided approximately €5 million to the EPIsoDE study — the first government-funded Phase 2 psilocybin trial for treatment-resistant major depression — conducted at the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim and Charité Berlin. Germany subsequently became the first EU country to establish a psilocybin compassionate access program for treatment-resistant depression.

The Health Research Board (HRB) is Ireland's primary statutory health research funding agency, which has awarded grants to Trinity College Dublin's Psychedelic Research Group to investigate psychedelics' immune effects in depression and the feasibility of psilocybin for cocaine-use disorder. The HRB also funds the KARMA-DEP(2) ketamine trial for treatment-resistant depression at St Patrick's University Hospital in Dublin, making it a key enabler of Ireland's emerging psychedelic medicine ecosystem.

Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) is France's national public health and medical research agency, funding and conducting biomedical research across university-hospital institutes throughout the country. INSERM-affiliated researchers at the Paris Brain Institute (ICM) and Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital have contributed to preclinical and clinical investigations of ketamine and psilocybin as rapid-acting antidepressants.

Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS) is Mexico's largest social security institute, operating the country's most extensive public hospital and clinic network serving over 70 million workers and their families. An IMSS-affiliated facility has participated in clinical research on ketamine for treating depressive symptoms in elderly patients with visual impairment.

Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) is Spain's national public health research agency, managing the CIBERSAM network (Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental) which co-funds biomedical mental health research across Spanish universities and hospitals. Through CIBERSAM, ISCIII has co-funded preclinical and translational research on psilocybin as an antidepressant and supports researchers contributing to the European psychedelic therapy landscape.

Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado (ISSSTE) is Mexico's federal social security institute for government employees, operating a nationwide network of hospitals and clinics serving millions of public-sector workers and their families. An ISSSTE-affiliated facility has participated in clinical research examining ketamine's effect on depressive symptoms in elderly patients with visual impairment.

Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) is Italy's National Institute of Health, the country's principal technical and scientific public body for biomedical research, public health surveillance, and regulatory advisory functions. The institute has participated in pharmacological research on designer psychoactive substances including methylone, an MDMA analogue, contributing to Italy's evidence base for novel psychoactive substance regulation.

VA medical center in Minneapolis providing healthcare and clinical research for veterans. Part of the Veterans Health Administration network that has committed significant funding to studying MDMA- and psilocybin-assisted therapies for PTSD and treatment-resistant depression in veteran populations.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the principal US federal agency for cancer research and training, one of 27 institutes within the National Institutes of Health, with an annual budget exceeding $7 billion. In the psychedelic field, NCI has supported trials exploring psilocybin-assisted therapy for cancer-related demoralization and chronic pain in survivors, as well as ketamine infusion to prevent depression in patients undergoing treatment for pancreatic and head-and-neck cancers.

NIH center that accelerates the translation of biomedical discoveries into health solutions. NCATS' Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program funds the infrastructure at academic medical centers that supports emerging research including psychedelic-assisted therapy trials.

NIH center dedicated to researching complementary and integrative health approaches. NCCIH actively funds psilocybin studies for chronic pain, depression, and alcohol use disorder, and has formally acknowledged psilocybin's therapeutic potential—a significant milestone in the federal recognition of psychedelic medicine.

The National Center for PTSD (NC-PTSD) is a US Department of Veterans Affairs centre of excellence for research, education, and training on post-traumatic stress disorder, operating across seven VA medical centre sites with a focus on evidence-based assessment and treatment. The Centre has supported mechanistic ketamine research in military and veteran populations, including an investigation of AMPA receptor blockade on ketamine’s anti-suicidal effects relevant to veteran mental health crises.

The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) was a National Institutes of Health centre that funded biomedical research infrastructure, clinical and translational science programmes, and shared research resources until its dissolution in 2011, when its programmes were reorganised primarily into the new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). NCRR infrastructure and clinical research awards supported early NIH-funded investigations into glutamate-modulating medications for major depressive disorder that laid the mechanistic groundwork for understanding ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effects.

The National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET; Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas) is Argentina’s principal government agency for promoting science and technology, funding over 11,000 researchers and 10,000 doctoral students across a nationwide network of research institutes and centres. CONICET supported the NATMICRO study, a naturalistic observational investigation of the psychological and cognitive effects of self-administered psilocybin microdosing conducted in Argentina.

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is the UK’s largest funder of clinical, public health, social care, and translational research, funded by the Department of Health and Social Care with an annual budget of approximately £1.5 billion. NIHR co-funded the KARE trial — the UK’s largest study of ketamine-assisted therapy for alcohol use disorder — and supported the GluEsk trial investigating glutamate biomarkers and esketamine response in treatment-resistant depression.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) is a US National Institutes of Health institute dedicated to research on alcohol use disorder and its public health impacts, supporting approximately $500 million in research annually. NIAAA has funded studies exploring both ketamine administration for acute alcohol use disorder in the emergency department and psilocybin-assisted therapy to understand the neurobehavioral mechanisms underlying alcohol use disorder treatment.

The US federal biomedical research agency and the world's largest funder of medical research. After decades of absence, NIH began directly funding psychedelic clinical trials in 2021 through NIDA and NIMH, with growing allocations for psilocybin, MDMA, and ketamine research for addiction and mental health conditions.

The research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, funding and conducting clinical trials to advance veteran health. Has allocated significant resources to studying MDMA- and psilocybin-assisted therapies for PTSD and other mental health conditions affecting veterans.