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
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
Modern British Politics & Political History
Accelerator
Overview
Our aim is to develop and strengthen our scholarly activities as a research cluster offering innovative and significant projects, with a distinct commitment to a cross-disciplinary approach.
Community lead
University of Bath: David Moon
University of Bristol: Mark Wickham-Jones, Hugh Pemberton
Cardiff University: Stephen Thornton
University of Exeter: David Thackeray (PI), Richard Toye
Awarded
May 2015
Political, Social, Institutional & Cultural Dimensions of Risk & Security
Initiator
Overview
We aimed to bring together GW4 researchers to examine the analytical, political, social, institutional and cultural dimensions of risk in contemporary security discourse and practice.
Community lead
University of Bath: David Galbreath
University of Bristol: Tim Edmunds
Cardiff University: Christian Bueger
University of Exeter: Doug Stokes (PI), Sir Paul Newton
Awarded
November 2014
GW4 Environmental Humanities
Initiator
Overview
A new community of researchers in the Human Sciences focused on raising the profile and collaborative potential of interdisciplinary work on environmental problems in Wales, the South West and internationally.
Community lead
University of Bath: Axel Goodbody
University of Bristol: Peter Coates
Cardiff University: Ria Dunkley
University of Exeter: Nicola Whyte (PI)
Awarded
October 2014
Unlocking the Science for an Autonomous Structural Health Monitoring System
Accelerator
Overview
The primary vision of this collaboration was to become a world leading research consortium that advanced the state of the art in wireless Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) in composite structures by bringing together the unique combination of expertise within GW4.
Community lead
University of Bath: Alicia Kim
University of Bristol: Stephen Hallett
Cardiff University: Carol Featherston (PI)
University of Exeter: Meiling Zhu
Awarded
October 2014
Avarice: Algal Valorisation & Remediation of Metal Ion Contaminated Effluents
Accelerator
Overview
Our aim was to investigate the use of algae native to contaminated mine sites to remove metals from acid mine drainage (AMD) and then convert the algae to biofuels.
Community lead
University of Bath: Christopher Chuck
University of Bristol: Tom Scott
Cardiff University: Devin Sapsford
University of Exeter: Chris Bryan (PI)
Plymouth Marine Laboratory: Mike Allen
Awarded
October 2014
The Role of Science in Society and Policy
Initiator
Overview
This project sought to create the platform for a national and international cross-disciplinary effort to study ways in which the role of science in society can be valued and evolve and in which controversial findings can be better communicated and debated.
Community lead
University of Bath: Anna Gilmore (Co-PI), David Miller
University of Bristol: Stephan Lewandowsky (PI)
Cardiff University: Lorraine Whitmarsh
University of Exeter: Jason Reifler
Awarded
October 2014
Biomimetic Assemblies of Complex Functional Material in Hierarchical Structures
Accelerator
Overview
The research programme is based on the preparation of hierarchical layered materials deposited with a new state-of-the-art facility; Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD).
Community lead
University of Bath: Enrico Da Como (PI)
University of Bristol: Simon Hall
Cardiff University: Wolfgang Langbein
University of Exeter: David Wright
Awarded
October 2014
The GW4 Aging and Dementia (GW4AD) Consortium
Initiator
Overview
The community aimed to bring together dementia researchers and practitioners across the four GW4 sites, building upon our individual strengths and enabling us to produce a joint strategy for future research and to identify synergies that will maximize chances of securing future funding.
Community lead
University of Bath: Roy Jones, Robert Williams
University of Bristol: Patrick Kehoe, Seth Love
Cardiff University: Mike Owen, Julie Williams, Nigel Williams, John Gallacher
University of Exeter: Katie Lunnon (PI), Jonathan Mill, David Llewellyn, Iain Lang
Awarded
October 2014