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
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
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
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
GW4 Astrophysics Community
Initiator
Overview
This project aims to build closer collaboration between the GW4 astrophysics groups. The primary aim is to enhance our impact in the large partnerships that are building the next generation of astronomical observatories, in addition to improving our efficiency by working together.
Community lead
University of Bath: Carole Mundell
University of Bristol: Malcolm Bremer
Cardiff University: Jonathan Davies
University of Exeter: Tim Naylor (PI)
Awarded
February 2016
New Paradigms of Social Protection – Policies, Impacts & Outcomes
Initiator
Overview
This project aims to build an interdisciplinary GW4 community around the international and comparative study of social protection in regions of the world that are often left under-explored in academic research: the Middle East and North Africa, East and South East Asia, Latin America and Africa.
Community lead
University of Bath: Rana Jawad
University of Bristol: Patricia Kennett
Cardiff University: Rod Hick
Awarded
February 2016
The GW4 Pay Equality Research Consortium (PERC)
Accelerator
Overview
PERC will undertake a feasibility study for the development and operation of a secure sustainable pay data collection platform, which would facilitate multi-level research.
Community lead
University of Bath: Susan Milner (PI after CW)
University of Bristol: Gregory Schwartz
Cardiff University: Alison Parken, Rhys Davies
University of Exeter: Carol Woodhams (initial PI), Emma Jeanes
Awarded
February 2016