All communities are listed below in date order (newest first), and can be searched using key words or fund type.
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 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 £3.4M in 125 collaborative research communities, which have generated £87M in research income. This means that for every £1 GW4 spends on collaborative research communities, GW4 captures an impressive £25 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
All-solid-state lithium-ion batteries with cellulose enhanced solid polymer electrolytes (ALLIANCE)
STEM
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Young people’s self-harm and suicidal behaviour: Developing qualitative research to understand the influence of context and culture
HASS
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Fabrication and Testbed Network for Next-Generation Optical Brain Computer Interfacing
STEM
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Physical, psychological and social factors influencing musculoskeletal injury and wellbeing in Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professional students
STEM
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183 results found
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Types
Network for Critical Engagement with the Defence Establishment
Initiator
Overview
Our network will foster dialogue on how dissenting voices on defence and security are articulated in Britain, and on how that dissent can be received productively by policy-makers and the wider public.
Community lead
University of Bath: Paul Higate
University of Bristol: Tim Edmunds
Cardiff University: Victoria Basham (PI) and Huw Bennett
University of Exeter: Owen Thomas
Awarded
January 2018
Physical, Chemical & Biological Impact of Increased Lightning Strikes due to Climate Change
Initiator
Overview
This project will bring together experts from atmospheric science, biology, chemistry, geography, engineering and physics within GW4 to explore the impact of lightning on the environment, centred on the only university-based lightning research facility within Europe, in partnership with the Met Office and the CTR Wilson Institute for Atmospheric Electricity (CTRWIAE).
Community lead
University of Bath: Martin Fullekrug
University of Bristol: Dudley Shallcross
Cardiff University: Daniel Mitchard (PI)
University of Exeter: Timothy Hill
Awarded
January 2018
South West & Wales Facing Withdrawal from the EU: Mapping, Needs, Strategies & Voice
Initiator
Overview
The project seeks to facilitate knowledge exchange between the region’s academic and business communities and to help map regional needs and a regional strategy in response to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and future trade policy.
Community lead
University of Bath: Dr Maria Garcia (PI)
University of Bristol: Dr Clair Gammage
Cardiff University: Dr Jo Hunt
University of Exeter: Dr David Thackeray
Awarded
January 2018
The GW4 PUP Community: Performance Under Pressure Understanding Occupational Stress: Performance, Health & Wellbeing in High Pressure Environments
Initiator
Overview
The proposed community brought together academic experts to tackle the health, well-being, and productivity challenges in performance domains, to produce world-leading, interdisciplinary research on occupational stress.
Community lead
University of Bath: Rachel Arnold (PI)
University of Bristol: Peter Turnbull
Cardiff University: Andy Smith
University of Exeter: Sam Vine
Awarded
January 2018
Transnational Transformations in Social Protection – Concepts, Instruments & Contexts
Accelerator
Overview
Our community aims to conduct world-leading research on social protection in both the Global North and South. We adopt the International Labour Organization’s definition of social protection as comprising income security across the life-course and in relation to specific contingencies, such as unemployment, and access to healthcare.
Community lead
University of Bath: Rana Jawad
University of Bristol: David Gordon
Cardiff University: Rod Hick
University of Exeter: Paul Cloke, Eleanor Cloke
Awarded
September 2017
GW4 Software-Intensive Research
Accelerator
Overview
GW4 have been awarded £3M of EPSRC capital funding to purchase Isambard, an innovative high-performance computer (HPC) for use by the GW4 universities, the Met Office (where the machine is housed) and the wider UK Community to explore innovative HPC, in particular the use of HPC based on UK-designed ARM processors rather than Intel processors, which power the overwhelming majority of HPCs currently.
Community lead
University of Bath: James Davenport (PI)
University of Bristol: Simon McIntosh-Smith
Cardiff University: Peter Knowles
University of Exeter: David Acreman
Awarded
September 2017
Transformative History Education in Conflict-Affected Contexts
Initiator
Overview
Our network brings together GW4 educationalists, historians and social scientists with expertise in conflict and social memory to develop conceptual thinking around transformative history education.
Community lead
University of Bath: Lizzi Milligan, Peter Manning
University of Bristol: Julia Paulson (PI)
Cardiff University: Kate Moles
University of Exeter: Catriona Pennell & Kelsey Shanks (now University of Ulster)
Awarded
September 2017
Health Inequalities in Older People – A Plan for Action
Initiator
Overview
The focus of this project was to identify new approaches and ways of addressing inequalities in health among older people living in low income / economically disadvantaged communities.
Community lead
University of Bath: Nikki Coghill (PI) and Jessica Francombe-Webb
University of Bristol: Demi Patsios
Cardiff University: Shantini Paranjothy
University of Exeter: Katrina Wyatt
Awarded
August 2017
Applied Volcanology
Initiator
Overview
Across the GW4, we have the expertise to promote the welfare of people in DAC countries by improving their resilience to volcanic eruptions.
Community lead
University of Bristol: Ryerson Christie, Alison Rust, Kathy Cashman
Cardiff University: Wim Degruyter
University of Exeter: James Hickey (PI)
Awarded
July 2017
Global Challenges “Low Carbon Energy Access” Hub
Accelerator
Overview
The goal was to bring together researchers from a wide range of disciplines to build a community around key issues in Low Carbon Energy Access in Overseas Development Assistance Countries, in order to formulate a proposal to be taken forward to the forthcoming RCUK collective fund interdisciplinary hub call.
Community lead
University of Bath: Philippe Blondel
University of Bristol: Sam Williamson
Cardiff University: Kersty Hobson (PI)
University of Exeter: Philipp Thies
Awarded
July 2017