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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Types
Research Working Group on Brain Injury – RWGBI
Accelerator
Overview
The ‘Research Working Group on Brain Injury’ (RWGBI) draws together a multidisciplinary team of highly complementary expertise, from four universities, to investigate the impact of concussive /sub-concussive blows on brain structure and function.
Community lead
University of Bath: Keith Stokes
University of Bristol: Martin Bunnage
Cardiff University: Derek Jones (PI)
University of Exeter: Huw Williams
Awarded
January 2017
Remediating the Archive
Initiator
Overview
‘Remediating the Network’ proposes to build a research community based in the intersection of two key areas of strength within GW4: archives/special collections and the digital humanities.
Community lead
University of Bath: Nina Parish
University of Bristol: Leah Tether, James Freeman
Cardiff University: Anthony Mandal (PI), Jenny Kidd
University of Exeter: Gabriella Giannachi, Gary Stringer
Awarded
July 2016
The Evidence Information Service Promoting GW4 Research on Evidence-Based Policy
Accelerator
Overview
The overarching aim of this research is to determine the utility and feasibility of establishing a new UK Evidence Information Service (EIS). The primary goal of EIS would be to act as a rapid matchmaker to connect the UK academic community and policy makers (including parliamentarians) in the service of evidence-based public policy.
Community lead
University of Bath: Hannah Durrant, Julie Barnett
University of Bristol: Deborah Wilson, Georgina Brereton, Alexia MacDonald
Cardiff University: Andrew Kythreotis (PI), Chris Chambers (replaced AK as PI), Gerard O’Grady
University of Exeter: Natalia Lawrence
Awarded
July 2016
GW4 Domestic Energy Consumption Group
Initiator
Overview
Energy networks are scaled for a short window of peak demand in the early evening. This is costly for operators, whose infrastructure is essentially over specified most of the time. And there are serious environmental consequences: it is gas and coal power stations that ramp up to meet peak demand.
Community lead
University of Bath: Ian Walker (PI)
University of Bristol: Chris Preist
Cardiff University: Wouter Poortinga
University of Exeter: Aleksander Pavic
Awarded
July 2016
UK Biobank Research Collaborative
Initiator
Overview
We propose to inform researchers from the four universities about the potential of this biomedical resource and to facilitate collaboration between teams with different areas of expertise in exploring the opportunities this provides.
Community lead
University of Bath: Dylan Thompson
University of Bristol: Cathy Williams
Cardiff University: Jonathan Hewitt (PI), Jeremy Guggenheim
University of Exeter: Jess Tyrell
Awarded
July 2016
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
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
A Biosocial Approach to Trauma Research
Initiator
Overview
This community’s focus is on psychological and physical health outcomes for individuals exposed to trauma, and the underlying biosocial factors that contribute to those outcomes.
Community lead
University of Bath: Sarah Halligan (PI)
University of Bristol: Abigail Fraser, Stan Zammit
Cardiff University: Stephanie Van Goozen
University of Exeter: Anke Karl
Awarded
July 2016
Towards a Rapid, Hand-Held Biosensor-Based Detector for Clostridium Difficile
Accelerator
Overview
The main impact of our project will be in healthcare, where we propose to tackle the major societal problem of antibiotic resistance by developing a rapid detector for bacterial infection (in our case for Clostridium difficile) that will lead to its appropriate treatment.
Community lead
University of Bath: Pedro Estrela
University of Bristol: Martin Cryan, Andrei Sarua
Cardiff University: Adrian Porch (PI), Les Baillie, Niek Buurma, Simon Pope
University of Exeter: William Leslie Barnes
Tracy Wotherspoon, Microsemi Ltd. (industrial partner)
Awarded
July 2016
GW4 Network on Advanced Molecular Platforms for Plastic Photonic Technologies (AMPHOTECH)
Accelerator
Overview
We will address the development of photonic applications for molecular materials by combining multidisciplinary expertise and perspective from the four South West Universities (Exeter, Bristol, Cardiff and Bath) including plasmonics, nanophotonics, quantum photonics, ultrafast spectroscopy or supramolecular chemistry.
Community lead
University of Bath: G. Dan Pantos
University of Bristol: Sara Nunez-Sanchez, Ruth Oulton, Martin James Cryan
Cardiff University: Stephen A Lynch
University of Exeter: William Leslie Barnes (PI)
Awarded
July 2016