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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178 results found
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Funds
Types
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
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
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
Global Challenges in Energy & Healthcare
Initiator
Overview
The primary goal of the Building Communities activity proposed here is to develop GW4 capacity, particularly within the “Sustainability” and “Healthy Living” themes identified in the GW4 5-year Strategy (2015), to respond quickly and effectively to anticipated RCUK Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) 2 calls in 2017.
Community lead
University of Bath: Janet L. Scott (PI)
University of Bristol: Paul Harper
Cardiff University: Kersty Hobson
University of Exeter: Stephen J Eichhorn
Awarded
February 2017
Systems Approaches to Anti-Microbial Resistance in Different Environments
Initiator
Overview
The community aims to explore and develop projects for future collaborative funding opportunities focused on using systems approaches to understand and tackle the problem of AMR in different environments and communities.
Community lead
University of Bath: Dr Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern
University of Bristol: Dr Katy Turner (PI)
Cardiff University: Prof Tim Walsh
University of Exeter: Dr Will Gaze
Awarded
February 2017
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
Data Intensive Research
Initiator
Overview
Developing capacity for research and development in data science is a major national priority. The clearest evidence for this was the announcement in the March 2014 UK Budget speech of £42M funding for the establishment of the national Alan Turing Institute (ATI). Despite none of GW4 universities becoming part of ATI at the time of this award, each has well-established research strengths in many aspects of data science and is in the process of establishing their own research institute in data science and related topics.
Community lead
University of Bath: Jonathan Dawes, Mike Tipping
University of Bristol: William Browne (PI), Dave Cliff
Cardiff University: Stephen Fairhurst, Jonathan Gillard
University of Exeter: Susan Banducci, Richard Everson
Awarded
January 2017
Developing STEM Education For Marginalised Groups in Low Income Communities
Initiator
Overview
The aim of this project is to build a research community that will share knowledge, expertise and resources in research and engagement with STEM education in low income countries, particularly for girls and women and indigenous or rural populations in developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas.
Community lead
University of Bath: Catherine Montgomery (PI)
University of Bristol: Justin Dillon
Cardiff University: Jamie Lewis
University of Exeter: Nasser Mansour
Awarded
January 2017