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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Funds
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
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
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
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
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