THE GLASGOW CALEDONIAN UNIVERSITY

Their core work

Glasgow Caledonian University is a Scottish university with strong applied social science research, focusing on migration policy, democratic participation, and community-level interventions. They specialize in translating research into practice through co-creation and participatory methods — designing interventions with the people affected, not just for them. Their work spans public health co-design (care homes, health implementation), climate adaptation through nature-based solutions, and security research including de-radicalisation using AI and spatial analysis. They consistently bridge social research with real-world policy and community outcomes.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

GCU's early H2020 work (2015–2018) focused heavily on migration, social cohesion, and labour market integration for refugees — responding to the European migration crisis. From 2018 onward, their portfolio shifted toward participatory methods, co-creation, and democratic resilience, with growing involvement in climate adaptation and security. Their most recent projects (D.Rad, Health CASCADE) show a convergence: applying co-design and AI tools to complex societal challenges like radicalisation and health implementation gaps.

GCU is moving from studying social problems descriptively toward actively designing and testing interventions through co-creation, increasingly incorporating AI and data tools into their social research toolkit.

How they like to work

GCU operates primarily as a contributing partner (8 of 11 projects), but has coordinated 3 projects, showing they can lead when the topic aligns with their core strengths. With 134 unique partners across 40 countries, they are well-networked and comfortable in large, diverse consortia. Their coordination roles tend to be in smaller, focused projects (PHARM AD, GET READY), while they join larger consortia as a specialist voice on social dimensions.

GCU has built a broad network of 134 partners spanning 40 countries, reflecting their involvement in large pan-European social research consortia. Their reach extends well beyond Western Europe into migration-origin and destination countries.

What sets them apart

GCU brings a rare combination of applied social science expertise with genuine participatory methodology — they don't just study communities, they co-design solutions with them. Their portfolio uniquely bridges migration, democracy, health, and climate through a common thread of inclusive participation and community engagement. For consortium builders, GCU is the partner that ensures your project has credible citizen involvement and can translate research outputs into policy-ready recommendations.

Highlights from their portfolio

• Health CASCADE
  Their largest single grant (EUR 1.2M) and most recent project, focused on co-creation methodology for bridging the gap between health knowledge and real-world action.
• D.Rad
  Coordinated by GCU with EUR 776K, it uniquely combines AI, spatial analysis, and arts/sports approaches to tackle de-radicalisation — an unusual interdisciplinary mix.
• OPERANDUM
  Their entry into climate science, applying co-design methods to nature-based solutions for hydro-meteorological hazards using Copernicus satellite data fusion.