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
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
Health-Related Behaviour Change Interventions
Initiator
Overview
We aimed to establish a GW4 inter-disciplinary community of researchers interested in developing state-of-the-art interventions to generate long-lasting behaviour changes to improve health.
Community lead
University of Bath: Fiona Gillison, Afroditi Stathi, Julie Barnett
University of Bristol: Anne Haase, Simon Sebire, Russ Jago
Cardiff University: Sharon Simpson, Graham Moore
University of Exeter: Jane R Smith (PI), Charles Abraham, Colin Greaves
Awarded
May 2014
The Impact of Offshore Windfarms on Marine Organisms
Initiator
Overview
The community aimed to bring together an interdisciplinary team of GW4 researchers capable of substantially advancing knowledge of the impacts of offshore renewables.
Community lead
University of Bath: Phillipe Blondeli
University of Bristol: Andy Radford, Daniel Robert
Cardiff University: Roger Falconer
University of Exeter: Rick Bruintjes (PI), Steve Simpson, Darren Croft, Matt Witt, Phillipp Thies
Awarded
May 2014
Synbio Showcase and Strategy Meeting
Initiator
Overview
This project brought together GW4 researchers and key stakeholders in a showcase and networking event, and established a GW4 Synthetic Biology Strategy Group for leading future cross-institute collaborations.
Community lead
University of Bath: David Leak
University of Bristol: Paul Race
Cardiff University: Dafydd Jones
University of Exeter: Thomas Howard (PI)
Awarded
May 2014
Paramagnetic Species for Catalysis and Materials Applications
Initiator
Overview
The community brought together investigators from GW4 with overlapping, yet wide-ranging interests that relate to paramagnetism, in order to tackle big-scale, high-risk high-reward problems in the field.
Community lead
University of Bath: Mike Whittlesey (PI)
University of Bristol: Robin Bedford
Cardiff University: Damien Murphy
Awarded
May 2014
Addressing Gender Based Violence
Initiator
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.
Community lead
University of Bath: Tina Skinner
University of Bristol: Marianne Hester (PI)
Cardiff University: Amanda Robinson
University of Exeter: Anthony Musson
Awarded
May 2014
GW4 Epigenetics Consortium
Initiator
Overview
We aimed to establish a GW4 Epigenetics Consortium that capitalised on the complementary strengths in clinical, population-based and experimental research conducted in this general domain at GW4 institutions.
Community lead
University of Bath: Andrew Ward, Adele Murrell
University of Bristol: Caroline Relton (PI), Matthew Hickman
Cardiff University: Anthony Isles, Stan Zammit
University of Exeter: Jonathan Mill, Katie Lunnon
Awarded
May 2014
Alternative Urbanisms
Initiator
Overview
This project drew together researchers from social science and humanities across GW4, focusing on three overlapping aspects of the idea of ‘alternative urbanisms’.
Community lead
University of Bath: Roy Maconachie
University of Bristol: Gary Bridge
Cardiff University: Paul Milbourne
University of Exeter: Clive Barnett (PI)
Awarded
May 2014
Algal Valorisation and Remediation of Acid Mine Drainage
Initiator
Overview
The overarching aim of this research strategy was to develop an algal-based system for combined remediation and valorisation of acid mine drainage (AMD) and potentially other metalliferous effluents.
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
May 2014