This article reports on the recent priority agenda for mental health family carer research and advocacy developed by a new Australia-based network of stakeholders and researchers with lived and living experience of supporting someone experiencing mental distress. The Family and Carer Research and Advocacy Network (FaCRAN) emerged in the context of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System (RCVMHS) (State of Victoria, 2021) and subsequent reforms regarding new services for carers and a focus on carer lived experience in participation and leadership in research. Such large-scale transformation requires greater understanding and responsiveness to the needs and experiences of carers, who are critical to the mental health system yet often marginalised, poorly supported and misunderstood. This article outlines an agenda addressing the urgent need for family carer-led and -focused mental health research based on six core research priorities identified by FaCRAN: carer contributions and experiences; identity; rights; the carer workforce; pathways and capacity building; and growing the evidence base. This agenda reflects global challenges regarding the epistemic injustice inherent in the under-representation of carer knowledge in mental health research and practice and calls for further work that illuminates and centres lived experience and addresses the systemic issues carers face.

There are many terms for those who walk beside and provide unpaid support to those experiencing mental distress. We draw on the term ‘carer’, predominantly used in the Australian context, to refer to such supporters and family (of biology, culture or choice).