Grace-Net

Gambling Resilience and Community Engagement Network

Slot machines at a casino

Welcome to Grace-Net - the Gambling Resilience and Community Engagement Network. This network has been established as the UK's first dedicated research and innovation network for gambling harm prevention, protection, and recovery (P-Pt-R). Funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the Gambling Harms Research Innovation Partnership (GHRIP) programme, Grace-Net will initially operate from 27 April 2026 to 26 March 2027.

¶¶ÒõAPPµ¼º½ us

Gambling is woven into everyday life across Great Britain, and patterns of risk are changing rapidly. In the North West, one of the country’s highest-harm regions, the challenge is acute. Easy online access, in-play betting, personalised advertising and a dense network of late-opening venues have made gambling available everywhere, all the time. While it may appear harmless, for many it quietly drives debt, family breakdown and mental distress. Unlike alcohol or drugs, harms often go unseen until crisis point.

The project is rooted in the North West of England, one of the country's highest-harm regions, and will serve as both a regional testbed and a national catalyst, with the network aiming to spread initially into neighbouring regions (e.g. West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside) and then around the UK. Across Grace-Net's 5.8 million-person initial region, 50 per cent of the most deprived councils in England sit alongside areas of affluence, providing the scale and contrast needed to understand how place, inequality, and access shape vulnerability and resilience.

Grace-Net's work is organised around three interconnected themes, the P-Pt-R framework (These themes operate simultaneously and inform one another):

  • Prevention: reducing exposure and risk before harm occurs
  • Protection: advocacy, education, and early intervention for those at risk
  • Recovery: support for individuals and families experiencing or recovering from gambling harm

Guiding Principles

Grace-Net is guided by four principles that inform how partners work together and how the project is delivered:

Nothing about us without us

Lived-experience representatives are embedded in governance, delivery, authorship, and dissemination at every stage.

Transparency

Methodologies, data, outputs, and governance decisions are openly documented and accessible.

Trauma-informed practice

All partner engagement, particularly with lived-experience contributors, is conducted with explicit attention to safety, trust, choice, and empowerment.

Research integrity

The project adheres to UKRI's Code of Conduct and the Concordat to Support Research Integrity, with published conflict-of-interest declarations and independence from commercial or political interests.

Protection, Prevention and Recovery

To meet the thematic objectives of protection, prevention, and recovery from gambling harm, Grace-Net activities are organised into 6 pillars of work. These focus on:

1. Establish a North-West-wide partnership and national capacity-builder
2. Create and sustain a Community of Practice
3. Produce the Landscape Analysis of Regional Gambling-harm Experiences (LARGE) Atlas and Research and Innovation Route Map
4. Build participatory innovation and evaluation literacy
5. Launch the Diamond Open-Access journal
6. Provide effective and supportive governance structure and action, and prepare Phase-2 readiness

Leadership Team

Academic Project Team