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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 at the links above.

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).

Read the Statement

 


Explore our communities

All communities are listed below in alphabetical order, and can be searched using key words or fund type.
Our “Featured Communities” are from the most recent round of Generator funding.

161 results found
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Funds
Types
GW4 Human Tissue Community
Development Award
Overview
The project will establish a Human Tissue Authority (HTA) Research Licence Community across GW4 institutions.
Community lead

University of Bristol: Susan Ring
Cardiff University: Phil Stephens
University of Exeter: Jacqueline Whatmore (PI)

Awarded
November 2023
GW4 R WELL (Researcher Wellbeing Evidence and Learning Lab)
Development Award
Overview
GW4 R WELL aim to build a network of academic and professional service staff across GW4, to share multi-disciplinary experience, knowledge, research, policy and good practice on researcher distress/(secondary) trauma and wellbeing.
Community lead

University of Bath: Tina Skinner (PI), Sarah Halligan, Kristine Brance, Jade Bloomfield-Utting, Rachel Arnold
University of Bristol: Natasha Mulvihill, Myles-Jay Linton
Cardiff University: Josie Henley
University of Exeter: Rachel Fenton, Ernesto Schwartz-Marin

Awarded
October 2023
South West Anthropology Network (SWAN)
Development Award
Overview
SWAN aims to bring together anthropologists across the region, to facilitate networking and discussion.
Community lead

University of Bristol: Amy Penfield
University of Exeter: Susannah Crockford (PI)

Awarded
September 2023
Management Knowledge Transfer Partnerships Conference
Development Award
Overview
This project aims to enhance the awareness and interest of academics in GW4 Universities about Management Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (mKTP).
Community lead

University of Bath: Hong Bui
University of Bristol: Xialong Shui
Cardiff University: Paul Thomas
University of Exeter: Bach Nguyen (PI)

Awarded
July 2023
Climate Justice Education Research Network (CJERN)
Development Award
Overview
This project aims to bring together current research in climate and environmental justice with work in environmental education across the GW4 institutions.
Community lead

University of Bath: Rachel Wilder, Shona McIntosh
University of Bristol: Tracy Helliwell (PI), Alison Oldfield, Terra Sprague, Loz Hennessy (RA)
Cardiff University: Esther Muddiman, Rhian Barrance
University of Exeter: Lindsay Hetherington

Awarded
July 2023
Understanding the Support Available to Refugee Children and their Families
Generator
Overview
Our goal is initiate research that can ultimately inform how refugee children can be supported effectively, with a particular focus on the opportunities provided by informal sources of support and the barriers to receiving such support.
Community lead

University of Bath: Sarah Halligan (PI)
University of Bristol: Laura Howe
Cardiff University: Nina Maxwell
University of Exeter: Anke Karl

Awarded
June 2023
GW4 Sustainable Food Consumption Research Community
Generator
Overview
This project will explore how people decide which foods to purchase and what socioeconomic factors can shift consumer preferences with online experiments involving both global North and South countries.
Community lead

University of Bath: Yixian Sun
University of Bristol: Jessica Paddock
Cardiff University: Pan He (PI), Wouter Poortinga
University of Exeter: Natalia Lawrence

Awarded
June 2023
GW4 Plant Epigenetics Community; Bridging the Knowledge Gap from Models to Crops
Generator
Overview
Here, we will bring together GW4-based academics and partners to establish a new plant science community that aims to bridge the knowledge gap in epigenetics between model systems and crops.
Community lead

University of Bath: Hans-Wilhelm Nuetzmann (PI)
University of Bristol: Sacha Przewieslik-Allen, Keith Edwards
Cardiff University: Tamara Lechón Gomez (co-PI), Hilary Rogers
University of Exeter: Vinod Kumar

Awarded
June 2023
Fertility: In Vitro, in Silico, In Clinico
Generator
Overview
We seek to improve the success rate of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) through interdisciplinary collaboration between mathematical modellers, experimentalists and clinicians, across GW4 and beyond.
Community lead

University of Bath: Tony Perry
University of Bristol: Deborah Lawlor, Ahmed Elhakeem
Cardiff University: Thomas Woolley & Katerina Kaouri (joint PIs), Karl Swann
University of Exeter: Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova

Awarded
June 2023
Queer Frontiers
Generator
Overview
An events based interdisciplinary community, intent on collaboratively charting the future frontiers of queer research.
Community lead

University of Bath: Fran Amery
University of Bristol: Rosie Nelson (PI), Peter Dunne
Cardiff University: Kate Marston
University of Exeter: Sarah Cooper, (previous CoI: Joao Florencio)

Awarded
June 2023
University of Bath
University of Bristol
Cardiff University
University of Exeter