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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 £3.2M in 105 collaborative research communities, which have generated £63.4M in research income. This means that for every £1 GW4 spends on collaborative research communities, GW4 captures an impressive £20 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).

Read the Statement

 


Explore our communities

All communities are listed below in alphabetical order, and can be searched using key words or fund type.
Our “Featured Communities” are from the most recent round of Generator funding.

167 results found
Sort Sort Date Newest
Funds
Types
Climate Justice Education Research Network (CJERN)
Development Award
Overview
This project aims to bring together current research in climate and environmental justice with work in environmental education across the GW4 institutions.
Community lead

University of Bath: Rachel Wilder, Shona McIntosh
University of Bristol: Tracy Helliwell (PI), Alison Oldfield, Terra Sprague, Loz Hennessy (RA)
Cardiff University: Esther Muddiman, Rhian Barrance
University of Exeter: Lindsay Hetherington

Awarded
July 2023
GW4 Community Studying Fatigue in People with Multiple Long-term Conditions
Generator
Overview
Building a community of academics interested in studying fatigue and developing targeted physical interventions for fatigue across clinical conditions and in individuals with multiple long-term conditions.
Community lead

University of Bath: Ezio Preatoni
University of Bristol: Liz Coulthard
Cardiff University: Jennifer Davies (PI), Monica Busse Morris, Deborah Edward
University of Exeter: Helen Dawes

Awarded
June 2023
Forcibly Displaced Students in Higher Education
Generator
Overview
Our network will generate research-informed innovations that improve Forcibly Displaced Peoples’ access to Higher Education, enhance institutional practices through interdisciplinary research and disseminate best practices across GW4 institutions, the UK and internationally.
Community lead

University of Bath: Katharina Lenner
University of Bristol: Lisa Lucas
Cardiff University: Sin Yi Cheung
University of Exeter: Nick Gill (PI)

Non GW4 collaborator: Isabelle Schäfer

Awarded
June 2023
Volcanic Plumes from the Seafloor to the Edge of Space
Generator
Overview
We are interested in anything related to volcanic plumes, whether in the ocean and in the atmosphere!
Community lead

University of Bath: Neil Hindley, Corwin Wright
University of Bristol: Mark Woodhouse, Ailsa Naismith, Samuel Mitchell, Juliet Biggs, Jeremy Phillips, Matthew Watson, Peter Rowley
Cardiff University: Ricardo Ramalho, David Buchs, Katherine Daniels, George Cooper, Tiago Alves, Thomas Barker, Marc-Alban Millet, Diana Contreras Mojica
University of Exeter: Thomas Aubry (PI), Helen Webster, Jim Haywood, James Hickey

Awarded
June 2023
Brain Tissue Engineering Community
Generator
Overview
We aim to bring together and train a community of interdisciplinary GW4 researchers to build living cell models that we can use to better understand and treat diseases of the brain.
Community lead

University of Bath: Nazia Mehrban, Matthew Little
University of Bristol: James Armstrong (PI), Norah-Jane Prendergast
Cardiff University: Yasir Syed, Tianqi Wang

Awarded
June 2023
Understanding the Support Available to Refugee Children and their Families
Generator
Overview
Our goal is initiate research that can ultimately inform how refugee children can be supported effectively, with a particular focus on the opportunities provided by informal sources of support and the barriers to receiving such support.
Community lead

University of Bath: Sarah Halligan (PI)
University of Bristol: Laura Howe
Cardiff University: Nina Maxwell
University of Exeter: Anke Karl

Awarded
June 2023
GW4 Sustainable Food Consumption Research Community
Generator
Overview
This project will explore how people decide which foods to purchase and what socioeconomic factors can shift consumer preferences with online experiments involving both global North and South countries.
Community lead

University of Bath: Yixian Sun
University of Bristol: Jessica Paddock
Cardiff University: Pan He (PI), Wouter Poortinga
University of Exeter: Natalia Lawrence

Awarded
June 2023
GW4 Plant Epigenetics Community; Bridging the Knowledge Gap from Models to Crops
Generator
Overview
Here, we will bring together GW4-based academics and partners to establish a new plant science community that aims to bridge the knowledge gap in epigenetics between model systems and crops.
Community lead

University of Bath: Hans-Wilhelm Nuetzmann (PI)
University of Bristol: Sacha Przewieslik-Allen, Keith Edwards
Cardiff University: Tamara Lechón Gomez (co-PI), Hilary Rogers
University of Exeter: Vinod Kumar

Awarded
June 2023
Fertility: In Vitro, in Silico, In Clinico
Generator
Overview
We seek to improve the success rate of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) through interdisciplinary collaboration between mathematical modellers, experimentalists and clinicians, across GW4 and beyond.
Community lead

University of Bath: Tony Perry
University of Bristol: Deborah Lawlor, Ahmed Elhakeem
Cardiff University: Thomas Woolley & Katerina Kaouri (joint PIs), Karl Swann
University of Exeter: Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova

Awarded
June 2023
Queer Frontiers
Generator
Overview
An events based interdisciplinary community, intent on collaboratively charting the future frontiers of queer research.
Community lead

University of Bath: Fran Amery
University of Bristol: Rosie Nelson (PI), Peter Dunne
Cardiff University: Kate Marston
University of Exeter: Sarah Cooper, (previous CoI: Joao Florencio)

Awarded
June 2023
University of Bath
University of Bristol
Cardiff University
University of Exeter