All communities are listed below in alphabetical order, and can be searched.
Our “Featured Communities” are from the most recent round of Generator funding.
Our Communities
Our communities
The GW4 Building Communities Programme aims to build research and innovation communities of scale and capability, delivering a step change in world-class research that could not be achieved by one of the institutions alone. The Programme has two funding schemes:
- The annual Generator Fund which awards GW4 communities up to £20K for 6 month projects (launched in 2020). This replaced the Initiator (up to £20K for 5 months) and Accelerator (up to £75K for 8 months) funding schemes, which ran from 2014 – 2019.
- The Development Awards which support new, and advance existing, collaborations across GW4 by funding single activities or resources with up to £5K. This is a rolling scheme, with no closing date.
More details of both schemes, and how to apply, can be found below.
Building Communities funding supports both the creation of new GW4 communities and the development of the strongest ideas emerging from our existing communities, and is open to any academic area. To date, the GW4 Alliance has invested over £3.2M in 105 collaborative research communities, which have generated £63.4M in research income. This means that for every £1 GW4 spends on collaborative research communities, GW4 captures an impressive £20 in external research awards.
Research integrity
The GW4 Alliance has adopted the Russell Group Research Integrity Statement of cooperation in cross-institutional research misconduct allegations, which aims to support the efforts of researcher communities to foster research integrity (also known as good practice in research or the responsible conduct of research).
Explore our communities
Featured Communities
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Types
Water Security Alliance
Accelerator
Overview
The Water Security Alliance is a large regional alliance of academics from the four GW4 institutions, together with stakeholders, with a common vision of addressing the impact of global change on water to benefit people and ecosystems.
Community lead
University of Bath: Jan Hofman
University of Bristol: Thorsten Wagener
Cardiff University: Isabelle Durance (PI)
University of Exeter: Zoran Kapelan
Awarded
February 2017
Water Security Alliance
Initiator
Overview
Our aim is to create the ‘Water Security Alliance’, a long-term alliance bringing together research excellence, infrastructure and partnerships from the GW4 institutions with expertise in water research.
Community lead
University of Bath: Jan Hofman
University of Bristol: Thorsten Wagener
Cardiff University: Isabelle Durance (PI)
University of Exeter: Zoran Kapelan
Awarded
July 2016
Wales & South West Responses & Preparations for Brexit & UK Trade Policy
Accelerator
Overview
This community brought together academics, business representatives and stakeholders in the region to raise awareness and understanding of the intersections between trade policy and other domestic policies and to consider and identify pathways to influence future UK trade policies.
Community lead
University of Bath: Maria Garcia (PI)
University of Bristol: Clair Gammage
Cardiff University: Jo Hunt
University of Exeter: David Thackeray
Awarded
February 2019
Volcanic Plumes from the Seafloor to the Edge of Space
Generator
Overview
We are interested in anything related to volcanic plumes, whether in the ocean and in the atmosphere!
Community lead
University of Bath: Neil Hindley, Corwin Wright
University of Bristol: Mark Woodhouse, Ailsa Naismith, Samuel Mitchell, Juliet Biggs, Jeremy Phillips, Matthew Watson, Peter Rowley
Cardiff University: Ricardo Ramalho, David Buchs, Katherine Daniels, George Cooper, Tiago Alves, Thomas Barker, Marc-Alban Millet, Diana Contreras Mojica
University of Exeter: Thomas Aubry (PI), Helen Webster, Jim Haywood, James Hickey
Awarded
June 2023
Using Realistic Review Methodology to Investigate Digital Health Interventions for Managing Long Term Conditions
Initiator
Overview
Digital health interventions to support people with long-term conditions: what works, for whom, in what circumstances?
Community lead
University of Bath: Matthew Jones, Charlotte Dack
University of Bristol: Sabrina Grant
Cardiff University: Judith Carrier (PI), Emma Lane, Valerie Sparkes, Roser Beneito–Montagut
Awarded
February 2019
URL – Understanding Religion & Laws: Muslims, Fatwas & Muftis in the UK
Accelerator
Overview
Through the work of the project we aim to address the issues of how an inclusive, innovative and reflective society which recognises religious diversity might be further developed.
Community lead
University of Bristol: Julian Rivers
Cardiff University: Sophie Gilliat-Ray and Mustafa Baig (now Exeter)
University of Exeter: Robert Gleave (PI)
Awarded
July 2016
URL – Understanding Religion & Law
Initiator
Overview
URL will examine the past interaction of religion and law, exploring how they have inspired modern legal systems, and how debates around their relationship might be better informed.
Community lead
University of Bath: Scott Thomas
University of Bristol: Julian Rivers
Cardiff University: Norman Doe
University of Exeter: Robert Gleave (PI)
Awarded
September 2015
Urban Humanities
Generator
Overview
Our GW4 community brings together a cross-disciplinary group of scholars to establish the research area of the Urban Humanities, which is critical, we contend, to understanding the full complexity of urban change in the twenty-first century.
Community lead
University of Bath: Christina Horvath, Bryan Clift
University of Bristol: Maria Fannin, James Duminy
Cardiff University: Julian Brigstocke, Gary Bridge
University of Exeter: Jason Baskin (PI)
Awarded
June 2021
Unlocking the Science for an Autonomous Structural Health Monitoring System
Accelerator
Overview
The primary vision of this collaboration was to become a world leading research consortium that advanced the state of the art in wireless Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) in composite structures by bringing together the unique combination of expertise within GW4.
Community lead
University of Bath: Alicia Kim
University of Bristol: Stephen Hallett
Cardiff University: Carol Featherston (PI)
University of Exeter: Meiling Zhu
Awarded
October 2014
Understanding Use of Agricultural Azoles & its Impact on Quality of Waterbodies and AMR
Generator
Overview
This project aims to understand use of azole fungicide in arable farmlands in Southwest England and determine its impact on quality of waterbodies and AMR.
Community lead
University of Bath: Neil Brown
University of Bristol: Susan Conlon, Arleen Kristhel Lezcano
University of Exeter: Dhara Malavia (PI), Ray Chan, Aimee Murray, Andrew Jones
Awarded
April 2022