The GW4 Building Communities Programme aims to build research communities of scale and capability that will deliver a step change in world-class research that could not be achieved by one of the institutions alone.
In 2020, we launched Generator funding which awards communities up to £20K for 6 months. 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. 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 £3.1m in 112 collaborative research communities, which have generated £62.8M in research income. This means that for every £1 GW4 spends on collaborative research communities, GW4 captures an impressive £20 in external research awards.
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).
CLOSED The third round of the Generator Fund closed in February 2022. Applications for the fourth round of the Generator Fund will open again in late 2022. For more information, or to be informed about when applications open again, please contact the GW4 Building Communities Manager (Harriet Mills) at communities@gw4.ac.uk.
Explore our research communities by award type or activity group. (All communities are also listed below in order of award date with newest first).
INITIATOR FundProject period: October 2014 – January 2015 GW4 community leads University of Bath: Roy Jones, Robert Williams Project 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. |
Project period: October 2014 – January 2015
University of Bath: Anna Gilmore, David Miller
University of Bristol: Stephan Lewandowsky
Cardiff University: Lorraine Whitmarsh
University of Exeter: Jason Reifler
Project period: October 2014 – April 2015
GW4 community leads
University of Bath: Alicia Kim
University of Bristol: Stephen Hallett
Cardiff University: Carol Featherston (PI)
University of Exeter: Meiling Zhu
Project overview
The primary vision of this collaboration is to become a world leading research consortium that advances the state of the art in wireless Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) in composite structures by bringing together the unique combination of expertise within GW4.
Project period: May – July 2014
GW4 community leads
University of Bath: Tina Skinner
University of Bristol: Marianne Hester (PI)
Cardiff University: Amanda Robinson
University of Exeter: Anthony Musson
Project overview
This community aimed to create a concrete network of GW4 Gender Based Violence researchers to build on existing links across GW4 and identify new and innovative collaborative research opportunities.
Project period: May – July 2014
GW4 community leads
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
Project overview
The overarching aim of this research strategy is to develop an algal-based system for combined remediation and valorisation of acid mine drainage (AMD) and potentially other metalliferous effluents.
Project period: May – July 2014
GW4 Community Leads
University of Bath: Roy Maconachie
University of Bristol: Gary Bridge
Cardiff University: Paul Milbourne
University of Exeter: Clive Barnett
Project outcomes
This project draws together researchers from social science and humanities across GW4, focusing on three overlapping aspects of the idea of ‘alternative urbanisms’:
Project period: May – July 2014
GW4 community leads
University of Bath: Paul Raithby (PI)
University of Bristol: Dek Woolfson, Simon Hall
Cardiff University: Niklaas Buurma
University of Exeter: Saverio Russo
Project overview
This collaboration brings together three exceptionally strong groupings within GW4 to focus on the design and development of new bio- and biomimetic materials with targeted properties and functions.
Project period: May – July 2014
University of Bath: Nicholas Mitchell
University of Bristol: Dan Lunt
Cardiff University: Ian Hall
University of Exeter: Tim Lenton
This project will focus on quantitatively evaluating the risks of extremes in climate and its variability.
