GambleAware, the problem gambling charity, will invest £4.0m ($5.5m/euro) in funding to the research hub dedicated to gambling harm research. It is the first research hub on an academic level in Great Britain devoted to the investigation of the gambling harms that are devastating for society. GambleAware focuses on responsible gaming by investing money in programs all over the country.
The charity will fund the solutions related to the grant award project that will last for eight months. This hub will be organised to support the aim to create a society that will be safe from all the relevant gambling harms. It will also generate the objective to build the capacity for academic research.
The main goal of the charity is to create additional funding sources beyond the initial funding. It will be part of the support for the continual growth of the primary initiative for better awareness of gambling harms.
Alison Clare, the interim research director of GambleAware, said it is an excellent chance for a British university to create a new strategy in this underdeveloped field. Other academic disciplines can also be part of the research projects as the field can be researched from many different angles. It can be a crucial step in creating knowledge in the area that connects with many other subjects.
The main hub will search for opportunities to enlarge the number of academic subjects that are involved in gambling harm research. With this initiative, the more extensive system of organisations, agencies, and treatment providers will work together in order to reduce and prevent the results of gambling harms. This will offer individuals a more comprehensive range of opportunities to work on their addictions and the negative consequences of gambling.
Even though the hub is going to be based on cooperation with one university, the whole system will also work with other establishments and partners that will host the facilities. All these cooperators will make the combined research that will help the end users locate and address their problems.
GambleAware supports the applicants of all clinical and academic backgrounds that have a relation with the studies important for the research. The disciplines like mental health, public health, epidemiology, health inequalities, psychology, health economics, and clinical health will be involved in the project. This way, all the aspects of gambling harms will be covered in the research projects.
Alison Clare also mentions that the grant award will cover smaller programs and projects that are not usually the centre of attention of similar initiatives. The main goal of GambleAware will be to focus on the multi-disciplinary approach that supports all kinds of research fields. The primary Expression of Interest moment will reveal the innovative and creative proposals that will speak about the versatility of the different approaches when it comes to various universities.
The start of the project will come after the great return of GambleAware’s campaign called Bet Regret, which aimed to provide safer gambling solutions and better gambling choices. The campaign and the hub initiative will start with the new football season of the English Premier League scheduled for 2020-21.
