Great Western Research (GWR)

The fundamental concept of Great Western Research is to promote collaborations between the highest quality research groups in the South West and regional businesses in order to attract international interest and recognition and to support the growth of the South West. The provision of research fellowships and research studentships is seen as an effective way to catalyse research partnerships between research groups in SW HEIs and industry. The aims of Great Western Research are:

To build a strong cadre of research students and staff and to ensure the sustainability of internationally-excellent research in South-West England
To catalyse the building of partnerships with major research funders
To build collaborative, interdisciplinary research at the interface of existing disciplines by engaging with SWRDA and business research teams as proposed in the Lambert Report
To encourage growth in business funded R&D in the South West.
To prepare the South West region for the technologies of the future and to provide the new technologists to lead change.

Direct outputs

We are aiming to fund 20 research fellowships, 130 studentships and train 1150 PGR students through a discipline specific training network. We will create 100 jobs, mainly through new postdocs appointed to university research projects and into industry. 60 academic staff will be expected to collaborate with a new industry partner. There should be 80 industry partners who have not collaborated with a particular academic or research group previously, 28 of which must be SMEs.

Indirect Outcomes

By the end of the 5 year period we would hope to have secured:

20 collaborative research projects involving funding from research councils or other research funders arising from the links developed through Great Western Research.
At least four of these projects should be with international partners.
We also hope to create two new centres of world-class research excellence arising from the collaborative approach.
Overall we are hoping for an increase of £2m in research funding from industry over the period of the project.