He is involved in several genetic consortia, including ENIGMA and the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC). He co-chairs to Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the PGC.

Professor McIntosh’s aims to better understand the causes and consequences of depression and other related psychiatric disorders. He currently works with large population-based studies of depression, such as Generation Scotland and UK Biobank in the UK, and DepGenAfrica and others, globally.