Collaborative research communities across the four universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter can now apply for up to £20K funding, as round three of the GW4 Building Communities Generator Awards officially opens.
Now in its third year, this initiative enables the formation of new GW4 communities and existing communities to explore new research opportunities.
Applications from Early Career Research (ECR) communities are particularly welcome, as well as those with a focus on GW4’s strategic research areas of Climate, Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and Net Zero - although communities in any area of research can apply to this open call.
To date, GW4 has supported 112 research communities which have tackled a range of global and societal challenges, such as climate change education, green recovery in cities, and new drugs to tackle antimicrobial resistance.
Dr Richard Pulsford (University of Exeter) said GW4 Generator Funding had been extremely helpful in the development of the Moving Through Motherhood research community.
"We have developed [our community] really well as a result of this award. We have a really good network of academics colleagues, importantly from a wide-range of disciplines, and stakeholder partners who have all shown an incredible amount of drive and enthusiasm to support our work," Dr Pulsford said.
Step-change collaborations
Dr Asel Sartbaeva (University of Bath) from GWPore: Porous Materials For Energy, Healthcare And The Environment echoed these sentiments: "This award really helped our community to get together and start communicating and working towards a common purpose. Having the backing from GW4 helped us enormously."
Generator funding can be used as a stand-alone award or in conjunction with other sources of funding. The expectation is that communities will then go on to apply for external funding.
GW4 Alliance Director Dr Joanna Jenkinson MBE said: "The Building Communities Programme has an excellent track record of building research communities of scale and capability, successfully engaging with GW4 academics and external partners to provide step-change collaborations that could not be achieved by individuals or single institutions alone. I encourage both new and existing communities to apply for this third round of Generator Award funding."
The deadline for applications is 7 February 2022. For more information, view the application guidance and forms on the GW4 website, or contact the GW4 Building Communities Manager by emailing communities@gw4.ac.uk.
