Community mapping

Our School of Environment, Education and Development regularly conduct #Huckathon sessions to engage hundreds of volunteers to remotely map hidden villages, roads and dwellings to target health interventions.

Protecting Kenyan communities against COVID-19

Our School of Environment, Education and Development and Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health worked with partners in Kenya to undertake initial surveys and set up a campaign to engage more than 200,000 people to change behaviour and improve knowledge surrounding coronavirus and the use of face masks.

Humanising Healthcare

Our Humanising Healthcare initiative embeds community service and engagement within dentistry, pharmacy and optometry programmes.

It supports students to deliver essential healthcare and education to communities as part of the curriculum.

It also encourages global volunteering and the development of civic values and skills in the future health workforce.

Antibiotic guardians

Our Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health has successfully established the Action on Antibiotic Drug Resistance: One Student. One Campus. One World programme.

We’re now working to create a wider student-led network with other universities in the north-west and across Africa.

Health and wellbeing study programmes

We have the UK’s largest medical school and are the biggest provider of graduate healthcare professionals to the NHS in England’s north-west.

We also offer pioneering professional programmes in areas including global health, humanitarianism and international healthcare leadership.

Preventing cardiovascular disease through smart technologies

Our academics are part of a collaboration to improve cardiovascular care in Indonesia.

The team trained local health workers (kaders) on cardiovascular disease, risk factors and the technical use of an app called SMARThealth, benefiting 48,000 people.

Tackling groundwater arsenic and health inequalities in India

In northern India’s rural communities, increased exposure to high concentrations of arsenic and other chemicals found in groundwater has contributed to a rise in cancer and cardiovascular disease, adding to the public health inequalities and poor health outcomes of the region.

Our Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences has shown the importance of rice as an exposure route for inorganic arsenic where microbes promote its release from materials such as sand and silt.

This research led to recommendations focusing on rice selection and preparation techniques, highlighting the dangers of groundwater irrigation.

Community Fridge

Our student-run, campus zero waste shop, Want Not Waste, holds a community fridge.

This contains food from unsold meals offered by local business and surplus raw ingredients provided by our catering outlets.

Stocking these items combats local food waste while helping to tackle food insecurity within our own university community.

Manchester Central Foodbank

Since its inception in 2013, the UK’s first student-led and campus-based foodbank, Manchester Central Foodbank, has helped thousands of local citizens with food insecurity.

This included developing an online store and delivery system for vulnerable and isolated people, and providing 70,000 meals during the pandemic in 2020.

Sustainable food study programmes

Our BA Geography students undertake a Food and Farming unit covering hunger, ethical consumerism, environmental sustainability, animal rights and social equity.

Biosciences undergraduates take a Plants for the Future unit exploring how plant biology can address social and environmental challenges.

Through a Green Biotechnology unit, students engage with the latest developments in sustainable food production, energy generation and pharmaceutical production.

Creating sustainable livelihoods through group farming

Our Global Development Institute has examined whether cultivating in groups – by voluntarily pooling land, labour, funds and skills and sharing costs and benefits – enables small farmers to create larger, more profitable enterprises in South Asia and beyond.

The research in Kerala, south India showed that carefully structured group farming created sustainable, food-secure livelihoods for vast numbers of poor women farmers.

Reproduction and austerity

Our academics are exploring the impact of austerity on reproduction.

The project uses a range of creative activities and interviews with women from areas in the north-east, where there are significant socio-economic barriers.

This project is providing new insights into contemporary austerity and how this may affect childbearing.

Student action

Our student community work on a range of projects to tackle extreme poverty and inequality.

Love for the Streets was established by two Manchester students to use youth events, content and social media marketing to tackle homelessness in partnership with local charities.

Once a Month fights period poverty through public campaigns and providing sanitary products to vulnerable women across Manchester.

Homeless Healthcare Society

The Homeless Healthcare Society helps improve the healthcare of Manchester’s homeless population by raising awareness of the medical inequalities and stigmas faced by homeless patients when accessing healthcare.

The aim is to ultimately improve the care provided by tomorrow’s healthcare professionals.

Food insecurity in the UK

Working with Manchester City Council, Cracking Good Food, Save the Children, Oxfam and other charities, our Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research and Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing conducted pioneering research to document food insecurity in the UK following the economic recession. We studied homelessness, street begging, food-bank use and financial difficulties faced by older women, and developed a pilot tool for helping older people with their nutrition. Our research influenced the political debate on food insecurity and raised awareness of the issue in the media.

Big Change Society

Based in our University’s Students’ Union, the Big Change Society supports people who are homeless by paying for essential items such as home deposits, training courses and clothes for job interviews. The society also signposts students towards the best ways they can get involved with ending homelessness and promoting responsible giving.

Amrita Live-in-Labs

Our Amrita Live-in-Labs Project puts scientific and engineering research to practical use for societal benefit in India, a country that is home to 33%  f the world’s poor. For example, students from our Department of Materials designed a smokeless stove for cooking in huts to reduce respiratory problems and developed strategies to educate children in mathematics in Chhattisgarh, a state with one of the poorest rates of educational achievement in India.