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
Maritime Advancements through Research and Innovation in Powertrains and Power Systems (MARINPOWER)
STEM
Learn More
196 results found
Sort
Sort Date Newest
Funds
Types
Plant-Soil Responses to Environmental Extremes
Initiator
Overview
The community brought together researchers across academic disciplines to increase understanding of the plant-soil zone and its response to environmental extremes, in order to preserve critical ecosystem services in the face of climate change.
Community lead
University of Bath: Kevin Briggs (PI)
University of Bristol: Claire Grierson
Cardiff University: Mike Harbottle
University of Exeter: Sarah De Baets
Awarded
October 2014
Dying Well After a Long Life
Initiator
Overview
This community aimed to bring together academics from across GW4 with research expertise relevant to elderly dying to develop a collaborative research programme.
Community lead
University of Bath: Tony Walter (PI)
University of Bristol: Liz Lloyd
Cardiff University: Jenny Kitzinger
University of Exeter: Kerry Jones
Awarded
October 2014
Nanoscale Sensors for Healthcare and the Environment (NANOSENSE)
Accelerator
Overview
This community brought together overlapping synergies in nanoscale device fabrication, design and measurement to develop a radically new set of multifunctional sensors that will make a major impact in a range of sensing applications.
Community lead
University of Bath: Philip Shields, Duncan Allsopp
University of Bristol: Martin Cryan (PI)
Cardiff University: Peter Smowton
University of Exeter: Geoff Nash
Awarded
October 2014
Emotional & Non-Verbal Communication in Social & Economic Interactions
Initiator
Overview
The community aimed to scope a multi-site, interdisciplinary collaboration that integrated currently distinct disciplinary paradigms to offer a unique perspective on the factors that promote fairness, equality and co-operation in interactions between individuals.
Community lead
University of Bath: Alan Lewis
University of Bristol: Ian Penton-Voak, Poppy Mulvaney
Cardiff University: Antony Manstead, Job Van Der Schalk
University of Exeter: Andrew Livingstone (PI), Brit Grosskopf
Awarded
October 2014
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
Large Scale Brain Networks in Neurological & Psychiatric Disorders
Accelerator
Overview
This project will be cross-disciplinary, combining theory, clinical data and experiments. A broad aim of our network is 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: Richard Apps, Nina Kazanina
Cardiff University: Vincenzo Crunelli
University of Exeter: Marc Goodfellow (PI), Jon Brown
Awarded
May 2015
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
Building a GW4 Clinical Academic Training Community
Initiator
Overview
By creating a vibrant cohort of young talented clinical academics across GW4 we will significantly enhance our collective abilities to translate our basic biomedical and population health research into an impact on patient care.
Community lead
University of Bath: Stephen Ward
University of Bristol: Jeremy Tavaré (PI)
Cardiff University: Paul Morgan
University of Exeter: Angela Shore
Awarded
May 2015