All communities are listed below in alphabetical order, 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 £3.2M in 105 collaborative research communities, which have generated £63.4M in research income. This means that for every £1 GW4 spends on collaborative research communities, GW4 captures an impressive £20 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
168 results found
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Funds
Types
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
BeDMaSH Behavioural & Decision Making Sciences in Healthcare
Initiator
Overview
This multidisciplinary network brings together expertise from across Operational Research, Decision Sciences, Mathematics, Psychology, Sociology, Implementation Science, Organisational Studies and Public Health to address new methods in understanding and modelling behaviours and decision making in the whole healthcare system.
Community lead
University of Bath: Christos Vasilakis
University of Bristol: Iain Gilchrist
Cardiff University: Paul Harper (PI)
University of Exeter: Martin Pitt
Awarded
September 2015
Centre for Media & Criminal Justice Studies
Initiator
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
September 2015
GW4 Centre of Excellence in the Built Environment
Initiator
Overview
This community addressed the need to reduce global carbon emissions, focusing on embodied carbon: the carbon produced from the construction, maintenance and eventual destruction of a building.
Community lead
University of Bath: Mike Lawrence (PI), Pete Walker
University of Bristol: Wendel Sebastian
Cardiff University: Chris Tweed, Yacine Rezgui
University of Exeter: Matthew Eames
Awarded
September 2015
GW4 Consortium for the Analysis of Intensively Collected Health Data
Initiator
Overview
The community aimed to build a GW4 community of statisticians, mathematicians, data scientists and epidemiologists who are developing and applying methods for analysing intensively collected data.
Community lead
University of Bath: Nicole Augustin
University of Bristol: Kate Tilling (PI)
Cardiff University: Kerry Hood
University of Exeter: William Henley
Awarded
September 2015
Reconceptualising Conflict and Peace Building – New Ideas & Actors in a Changing World
Initiator
Overview
This project responds to evolving global challenges relating to insecurity, inequality and shifting global power relations. Peace building is becoming increasingly central to global development policy, as demonstrated by its inclusion on the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.
Community lead
University of Bath: Oliver Walton (PI), Althea Rivas
University of Bristol: Ryerson Christie
Cardiff University: Elisa Wynne-Hughes
University of Exeter: John Heathershaw
Awarded
September 2015
Reconceptualising Participation & Inclusion in Higher Education
Initiator
Overview
The community aimed to consolidate a network of researchers and practitioners across GW4 with a research focus on the nature of participation of disadvantaged students in higher education.
Community lead
University of Bath: Andrea Abbas (PI)
University of Bristol: Sue Timmis
Cardiff University: David James
University of Exeter: Deborah Osberg
Awarded
September 2015
South West Quantum Dot Quantum Technologies Project
Accelerator
Overview
We aim to establish a focused research group on the theme of QD quantum technologies, using the expertise of the GW4 institutions to explore enabling solutions. As a short-term goal within the present project lifetime we will focus on practical solutions for QD technology.
Community lead
University of Bath: Peter Moseley
University of Bristol: Ruth Oulton (PI)
Cardiff University: Wolfgang Langbein
University of Exeter: Janet Anders
Awarded
September 2015