Lancaster researchers are part of a team of experts working to establish the UK’s first dedicated research and innovation network to tackle gambling harm in the north-west of England and beyond.

The team has been awarded more than £140,000 to set up Grace-Net: The Gambling Resilience and Community Engagement Network - funded through the first round of research money to come from the government’s Gambling Levy.

The focus of Grace-Net is Prevention, Protection and Recovery, and the project is co-led by Lancaster University and Beacon Counselling Trust. The team also includes academics with expertise in psychology, marketing, public health and data science; public health teams; NHS trusts; counsellors; charities and public sector organisations, all working to highlight the growing concerns around gambling harms.

The team has been awarded stage-1 funding by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to develop one of 19 new, specialised, Innovation Partnerships. Together these form a portfolio of new Gambling Harms Research UK (GHR-UK) projects - to be coordinated by a GHR-UK Evidence Centre.

Dr Carolyn Downs, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Lancaster University Management School, is joint academic project lead for Grace-Net alongside Professor John Towse from the department of Psychology at Lancaster.

Dr Downs said: “Gambling harm affects more than 9 million people in the UK, either directly or indirectly.

“People experience debt, crime, family breakdown, mental health crisis, and stigma that prevents them seeking help. Grace-Net exists to change that, by connecting the lived experience, practitioner and academic expertise that already exists across the north-west of England and turning it into evidence-based solutions that can work nationally.

“We are extremely fortunate on this project to have the insights of experts from across multiple sectors, working together towards the same goal.

“By bringing together evidence, lived experience and policy, along with national insights, Grace-Net will move gambling harms in the UK from hidden crisis to visible, evidence-based solutions that prevent harm, protect the vulnerable and support recovery.”

Sandra Keatley, project lead from Beacon Counselling Trust, said: “Gambling harms are often invisible to family, friends and wider communities and have an impact on many services. Grace-Net will bring coherence and cohesion to those existing organisations that both support communities experiencing gambling harm and provide a voice for the challenges they face.

“With the support of UKRI funding, we will establish a map of support currently offered across the region, working with academic partners and the third sector to gather meaningful resources, to inform policy, practice and futuristic Levy allocations.”

The project will build a network to raise awareness of gambling harms and will test effective approaches to reducing harms among the diverse groups of services who work within health, housing, advice and community support groups.

This will include producing accessible information in easy-to-use formats and establishing an innovative open-access journal to capture insights from people with lived experience of gambling harms, practitioners and academics.

Grace-Net will also invest in creating an ‘atlas’ of gambling harm experiences across the region, which can be used to target help where it is needed most and in ways that are most effective.

Organisations involved in the project include Lancaster University; Liverpool John Moores University; Beacon Counselling Trust; Blackpool Council; Empowerment; Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust; Lancashire County Council; Liverpool City Council; Red Card Gambling and Ygam.

The academic team also includes Dr Emre Tarim, Dr Hayley Cocker, Dr Helen Bruce and Dr Konstantinos Georgalos based at Lancaster University, with Nadia Butler and Charley Wilson, based at Liverpool John Moores.