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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Types
The Evidence Information Service Promoting GW4 Research on Evidence Based Policy
Initiator
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, Gerard O’Grady
University of Exeter: Natalia Lawrence
Awarded
September 2015
URL – Understanding Religion & Law
Initiator
Overview
URL will examine the past interaction of religion and law, exploring how they have inspired modern legal systems, and how debates around their relationship might be better informed.
Community lead
University of Bath: Scott Thomas
University of Bristol: Julian Rivers
Cardiff University: Norman Doe
University of Exeter: Robert Gleave (PI)
Awarded
September 2015
Controlling Nucleation & Growth to Deliver Novel Materials Functionality
Accelerator
Overview
The aim of our interdisciplinary community is to take an integrative approach combining theoretical modelling, experiments and simulations to advance the state of the art in nucleation and crystallization theory.
Community lead
University of Bath: Johannes Zimmer (PI)
University of Bristol: Isaac Chenchiah
Cardiff University: Stefano Leoni
University of Exeter: David Wright
Awarded
May 2015
Dying with Reduced Agency – People, Places, Principles & Policy
Accelerator
Overview
Demographic, technological, organisational, political and social changes create new challenges at the end of life. This GW4 community is focused on understanding and improving the end of life for the growing number of people with reduced agency (e.g. linked to dementia, disorders of consciousness or frailty/chronic conditions in advanced old age).
Community lead
University of Bath: Jeremy Dixon
University of Bristol: Richard Huxtable
Cardiff University: Jenny Kitzinger (PI)
University of Exeter: Linda Clare
Awarded
May 2015
GW4 Bio-X
Initiator
Overview
GW4 Bio-X exists to identify, frame and address the ‘unanswerable’ biological questions using ‘breaking’ and ‘in development’ methods, models and tools from the physical sciences. Our community is in place to make GW4 the national powerhouse in innovative, molecular bioscience and to develop novel capacity and capability.
Community lead
University of Bath: Christopher R Pudney (PI)
University of Bristol: Adrian Mulholland
Cardiff University: Rudolf Allemann
University of Exeter: Christian Soeller
Awarded
May 2015
GW4 Muculoskeletal Research Consortium
Initiator
Overview
Key objectives of the consortium include identifying areas of commonality and complementarity, exploring potential shared research infrastructure and facilities, recognising strengths and gaps in our combined research portfolio and exploring potential programmes of research.
Community lead
University of Bath: Richie Gill
University of Bristol: Ashley Blom (PI), Jon Tarlton
Cardiff University: Bruce Caterson
University of Exeter: Andrew Toms
Awarded
May 2015
Harnessing Technology to Develop New Models of Alzheimers Disease
Accelerator
Overview
As a team we have identified some early changes that occur to control how genes are regulated in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients. We will investigate how these gene changes might lead to Alzheimer’s disease.
Community lead
University of Bath: Vasanta Subramanian
University of Bristol: James Hodge, Caroline Relton
Cardiff University: Nick Allen
University of Exeter: Katie Lunnon (PI), Jonathan Mill, Jonathan Brown
Awarded
May 2015
Large Scale Brain Networks in Neurological & Psychiatric Disorders
Accelerator
Overview
This project will be cross-disciplinary, combining theory, clinical data and experiments. A broad aim of our network is to stimulate research collaborations that integrate experimental and clinical approaches with mathematical and computational modelling of brain networks.
Community lead
University of Bath: Roland Jones
University of Bristol: Richard Apps, Nina Kazanina
Cardiff University: Vincenzo Crunelli
University of Exeter: Marc Goodfellow (PI), Jon Brown
Awarded
May 2015
Prototypical Iterations in the Built Environment
Accelerator
Overview
This community has the long-term vision to change the way that all structures are designed and operated within the built environment. This is crucial if we are to achieve global sustainability in the face of a growing population and increasing urbanisation.
Community lead
University of Bath: John Orr
University of Bristol: Wendel Sebastian
Cardiff University: Iulia Mihai
University of Exeter: Prakash Kripakaran (PI)
Awarded
May 2015
The GW4 Pay Equality Research Consortium (PERC)
Initiator
Overview
A central goal of this GW4 consortium will be to determine the feasibility of establishing a multi-disciplinary team that will enable ground-breaking integrative equal pay research via the systematic collection of data using innovative methods. Ultimately, findings will have economic, managerial, human resource and policy implications.
Community lead
University of Bath: Susan Harkness
University of Bristol: Harriet Bradley
Cardiff University: Alison Parken
University of Exeter: Carol Woodhams (PI)
Awarded
May 2015