Manchester City of Trees

As part of our partnership with the local NGO, Manchester City of Trees, students can use our Volunteer Hub to sign up for one-off or weekly tree planting sessions or even become a Citizen Forester.

Our student volunteering is supporting their mission of planting one tree for every person across Greater Manchester, creating a healthier and more sustainable city region.

Watershed management

We’ve implemented watershed management strategies based on location-specific diversity of aquatic species.

These ensure flow rates of water run-off in our urban environment are decreased and water quality is improved, including reducing flow into our local River Medlock on campus.

At our rural Jodrell Bank site, we’ve also reduced flow into our local watercourses, protecting the great crested newt – a protected species that relies on aquatic life.

IncredibleOceans

At our Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, we partnered with IncredibleOceans to deliver outreach talks and programmes to raise awareness of how oceans are facing threats from development and overfishing, climate change, pollution, acoustics and more.

We teamed up with scientists, creatives, community organisations, campaigners, companies and broadcast media to maximise the impact of this educational outreach activity.

UK rivers and microplastics

Life below water, in rivers and at sea, is threatened by waste flowing from urban river channels into the oceans.

We’ve been highlighting the effect of microplastics – very small pieces of plastic debris including microbeads, microfibres and plastic fragments – on river systems and marine life through a range of pro-active media coverage, engagement with water companies and input into UK legislation on water management.

Towards net zero

The University has pledged to support Manchester’s climate change target for zero carbon by 2038.

This involves reducing carbon emissions from a 2018 baseline of 54,000 tCO2 to at least 21,000 tCO2 by 2025 and placing carbon impact at the heart of strategic decision making in the University’s new strategic plan.

GrowGreen project

Our academics are involved in GrowGreen, a five year, EU-wide project that promotes nature-based solutions to climate change.

The project involves a range of citizens, business and public-private partnerships in neighbourhoods and across cities to promote learning, sharing and replicating nature-based solutions and strategies to urban sustainability challenges.

Roots and Branches

Our Manchester Museum has been awarded Arts Council England and National Lottery Project Grant funding for an ambitious two-year partnership project in collaboration with Museum Development North West and the Carbon Literacy Trust. The project will accelerate the museum sector’s ability to respond to the climate crisis.

The Museum will host the ‘roots’: creating a nationally significant co-working hub of cultural environmental action that will bring together museum staff, educators, environmentalists, artists, researchers, third sector organisations and students.

Student campaigning and activism

Our Students’ Union set up Climate Justice Fortnight, an initiative exploring the different ways that climate injustice manifests itself, and how we can tackle it.

There are Teach-Ins throughout the fortnight where students and academic staff collaborate on delivering content on these issues in their current class times.

Students also organise activities and actions through societies such as the People and Planet Society or Extinction Rebellion Youth; get involved in sustainability leadership roles such as the Students’ Union’s Ethical and Environmental Officer; take on  environmental representation roles in halls of residence; and attend events and campaigns such as the youth strikes for climate action.

Empowering local climate-change action

To enable the UK to deliver significant carbon emissions reductions, the University created the Tyndall Local Carbon Budget Tool, helping cities, regions and organisations to play their part in achieving the global Paris Agreement.

Building on the Setting City Area Targets and Trajectories for Emissions Reduction (SCATTER) project, this foundational research established the importance of embedding carbon budgets – rather than end point targets – in setting carbon reduction targets.

It has been used by 250 UK local authorities, led local policymakers to focus on immediate emissions reductions and shaped global policy as part of the United Nations’ Race to Zero initiative.

Change Points

We worked with colleagues at The University of Sheffield on Change Points to develop new ways of understanding how householders’ routine activities end up demanding resources, including energy, food and water.

A key output was the co-design of a toolkit to support policy makers and other non-academic stakeholders interested in developing nuanced policy processes and business practices around household sustainability.

SCI Festival

Every year, our Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) holds the SCI Festival, promoting active discussion and networking among the public, practitioners and policy makers working on the front line of social change towards sustainability.

ProjectInc

Our Manchester Museum hosts and partners with ProjectInc, a Specialist College for Creative Education, to make our cultural institutions more inclusive, engaging and creative for neurodiverse young people.

#BeeWell

#BeeWell is an initiative established in Greater Manchester in 2019 by our University, Anna Freud, The Gregson Family Foundation, and Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The programme aims to explore young people’s opinions on wellbeing and the ways in which it can be improved. The findings inform activity across Greater Manchester, with schools, voluntary sector organisations and children’s services working closely with young people to interpret and act on the results. 

Inclusive growth in Greater Manchester

Our Inclusive Growth Analysis Unit was supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to analyse evidence about the scale of poverty and inequality in our city region.

It has recommended a range of policies on inclusive growth so that economic prosperity benefits all citizens across Greater Manchester and beyond.

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.

The Works

We’ve supported more than 4,000 local people into work through our unique partnership with the Manchester Growth Company on the initiative, The Works.

Global Development Institute

Our Global Development Institute (GDI) is Europe’s largest research and teaching institute focused on poverty and inequality. The GDI runs the Effective States and Inclusive Development (ESID) Research Centre, which investigates how politics promotes inclusive development and government accountability. Recent research suggests that countries with the highest government capacity can reduce income poverty at twice the speed of countries with the weakest capacity. Spanning 16 countries, our research is deepening the understanding of governance in developing countries, and helping to influence policy and practices and improve people’s lives