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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 £3.4M 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).

Read the Statement

 


Explore our communities

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.

178 results found
Sort Sort Date Newest
Funds
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
Media & Criminal Justice Studies Network
Accelerator
Overview
Our research community brings together academics from the social sciences, arts, and humanities to understand the production, distribution, and reception of as-live courtroom footage. From this we aim to identify how courtroom broadcasting might influence public confidence, trust, and knowledge about criminal justice.
Community lead

University of Bath: Sarah Moore (PI)
University of Bristol: Alex Clayton, Eleanor Rycroft
Cardiff University: Inaki Garcia-Blanco
University of Exeter: Sarah Cooper

Awarded
July 2016
Release the Hypotheses! Tools & Techniques for Experimental Studies “in the Wild”
Initiator
Overview
We propose to bring together a GW4 consortium to explore the human world beyond the laboratory in order to improve the resolution, significance, validity and robustness of studies.
Community lead

University of Bath: Danaë Stanton Fraser, Tim Ibell
University of Bristol: Andy Skinner, Mike Fraser (PI)
Cardiff University: Roger Whitaker, David Linden
University of Exeter: Mark Levine

Awarded
July 2016
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 UniversitySophie 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
University of Bath
University of Bristol
Cardiff University
University of Exeter