Every two years an international conference on schizophrenia (ICONS) is held in Chennai, Southern India. It is organized by Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF), a well-known non-governmental organization that offers innovative care to people with schizophrenia and conducts research and training as a collaborating WHO center.

At every one of these conferences in the past, there has been significant representation from Canada, especially from the Douglas Institute.

This year at the fourth ICONS conference, the Douglas was a major participant in organizing the event through a memorandum of understanding signed with SCARF as well as continuing research collaboration. The Douglas Institute also provided a small funding contribution and organized three symposia:

• Early Intervention in Psychotic Disorders: International Perspectives, with participation from Hong Kong, England, Iran and Canada (Douglas Institute), chaired by Ashok Malla.
• First Episode Psychosis Research and Update, with two contributions from the Douglas Institute, Drs. Srividtya Iyer and Ridha Joober.
• An Update on Treatment of Psychotic Disorders, chaired by Ashok Malla, with participants from Toronto, Paris, Chennai and London, Ontario.

Lastly, Elsje Van der Van (Douglas PEPP program) presented two papers at the conference based on our cross cultural project.

We look forward to continued research collaboration between the Douglas Institute and SCARF in Chennai, focusing on comparative outcomes in psychotic disorders treatment and understanding the reasons behind apparently better outcomes in Chennai.