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
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
Pre-Clinical Translational Biomedical Research Network
Initiator
Overview
We offer a unique pipeline of pre-clinical research models highly relevant to human disease and anatomy and state-of-the-art research equipment, with more than 150 biomedical scientists and experts.
Community lead
University of Bath: Tony Perry, Richard Gill
University of Bristol: Raimondo Ascione (PI)
Cardiff University: Chris Marshall, Derek Jones
University of Exeter: John Terry
Awarded
February 2016
The Incentives for Conflict & Cooperation
Initiator
Overview
Our GW4 community aims to tackle both the methodological challenges in bringing game theory to bear on economic and political issues where there can be conflict or cooperation, and applying the lessons learned to relevant policy debates.
Community lead
University of Bath: Peter Postl
University of Bristol: Francesco Giovannoni (PI)
Cardiff University: Indrajit Ray
University of Exeter: Rajiv Sarin
Awarded
February 2016
Children and Young People’s Suicide & Self-Harm Research Collaboration
Accelerator
Overview
The collaboration specifically focuses on a key evidence gap, namely the dearth of effective programmes available to schools and their staff in supporting students at risk of self-harm.
Community lead
University of Bath: Paul Stallard
University of Bristol: David Gunnell, Judi Kidger, Becky Mars, Lucy Biddle
Cardiff University: Rhiannon Evans (PI), Jonathan Scourfield, Nina Jacob
University of Exeter: Tamsin Ford, Astrid Janssens, Christabel Owens
Awarded
February 2016
Developing a Novel Biological Imaging Tool for Biomedical Applications
Accelerator
Overview
We aim to tackle the most fundamental challenge in modern protein science by developing a way to see changes in protein structure and flexibility inside cells.
Community lead
University of Bath: Christopher R Pudney (PI), Ventsi Valev
University of Cardiff: Dafydd Jones
University of Exeter: Christian Soeller
Awarded
February 2016
GW4 Biosensor Network
Initiator
Overview
The GW4 Biosensor Network will bring together researchers from different disciplines with an interest on biosensors. Biosensors measure chemical or biological molecules in complex samples (e.g. blood, water, air) for a wide range of applications including medical diagnosis, monitoring of therapies, personalised medicine, drug discovery and water quality control.
Community lead
University of Bath: Pedro Estrela (PI)
University of Bristol: Mervyn Miles
Cardiff University: Niklaas Buurma
University of Exeter: Peter Winlove
Awarded
February 2016
GW4 Cancer Research Consortium
Initiator
Overview
The GW4 Cancer Research Consortium aims to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration, by capitalising on the breadth of complementary expertise and high-impact cancer research across GW4.
Community lead
University of Bath: Adele Murrell, Lorenzo Caggiano (joint PIs)
University of Bristol: Paul Martin, Axel Walther
Cardiff University: Matt Smalley
University of Exeter: David Allard, Jackie Whatmore, Willie Hamilton
Awarded
February 2016
GW4 Coding
Initiator
Overview
The vision of this initiator is to bring together the coding experts of GW4 and others in the region (e.g. Crick at Cardiff Metropolitan, BCS), harness our excellent connections in the cyber security user and policy base to form a powerful research team to be in a position to bid for significant funds.
Community lead
University of Bath: James Davenport (PI)
University of Bristol: Ian Holyer, Nick Wu
Cardiff University: Pete Burnap
University of Exeter: Richard Everson, Mike Baldwin
Awarded
February 2016
GW4 Network on Family, Regulation & Society
Accelerator
Overview
The GW4 Network on Family, Regulation and Society aims to find appropriate methods to investigate the new and unexplored ‘delegalised space’ in which disputes on relationship breakdown are now attempted in England and Wales following the withdrawal of legal aid and the encouragement of private settlement.
Community lead
University of Bath: James Davenport, Ian Butler
University of Bristol: Emma Hitchings
Cardiff University: Gillian Douglas, Leanne Smith
University of Exeter: Anne Barlow (PI)
Awarded
February 2016