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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Modern British Politics and History
Initiator
Overview
The project brought together a varied but coherent group of historians and political scientists to explore issues of common interest in British Politics and Contemporary British History.
Community lead
University of Bath: David Cutts
University of Bristol: Mark Wickham-Jones (PI), Hugh Pemberton, Sarah Childs
Cardiff University: Peter Dorey
University of Exeter: David Thackeray
Awarded
October 2014
Functional Materials Far From Equilibrium
Initiator
Overview
This collaboration brings together all GW4 universities to nucleate a new community that will address an important bottleneck in the development of novel technological devices: the nonequilibrium evolution of material microstructure and its impact on macroscopic material behaviour.
Community lead
University of Bath: Johannes Zimmer (PI), Chris Bowen
University of Bristol: Isaac Chenchiah
Cardiff University: Nicolas Dirr
University of Exeter: David Wright
Awarded
October 2014
Large Scale Brain Networks in Health and Disease
Initiator
Overview
We aim to establish an active research community across GW4 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: Matt Jones
Cardiff University: Vincenzo Crunelli
University of Exeter: Marc Goodfellow (PI)
Awarded
October 2014
GW4 Medieval Studies
Accelerator
Overview
This project has established a GW4 Medieval Studies community that is vibrant, productive and creative with a shared vision. Its aim is to lead in the field. There are various on-going shared initiatives to develop the research culture in Medieval Studies.
Community lead
University of Bristol: Carolyn Muessig (PI), Ian Wei, Beth Williamson, Helen Fulton (replacement PI)
Cardiff University: Bronach Kane
University of Exeter: James Clark
Awarded
October 2014
GW4 Imaging Network
Initiator
Overview
This community aimed to create a GW4 network of inter-disciplinary expertise to promote, inspire and support quantitative image analysis across the disciplines, in each institution, and to promote GW4 scientific imaging at the international level.
Community lead
University of Bath: Silvia Munoz-Descalzo, Jim Caunt
University of Bristol: Mark Jepson
Cardiff University: Jim Murray, Peter Watson, Joaquin de Navascues Melero
University of Exeter: Michael Deeks (PI), Jacqueline Christmas, George Littlejohn, Jeremy Metz
Awarded
October 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