Social Responsibility

One World Together

One World Together, co-founded by the University’s Global Development Institute, Dr Nicola Banks, is an innovative social enterprise rooted in principles of trust, solidarity and equity. It shifts money and decision-making power to the organisations closest to communities. With partners in Manchester, the North-West of England, Kenya and Zambia, One World Together brings local voices and experiences to the forefront of the movement, deepening their supporters’ understandings of poverty and inequality and of why local actors are so important to overcoming these.

Manchester Museum repatriation project

Our Manchester Museum has been working with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) and the Anindilyakwa Land Council on a landmark repatriation project, returning 174 cultural heritage items to the Aboriginal Anindilyakwa community of Australia’s Northern Territory. The process of returning these items has supported Anindilyakwa cultural strengthening and revitalisation.

Public health and the SDGs

The University has developed a series of open-access courses on public health and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are a key part of the United Nations’ work to improve lives and protect the natural world. Public health is integral to these aspirations, in helping to improve people’s health while protecting the health of our planet and the natural world that we are all dependent on. This series of courses aims to give an introduction to the public health issues that are relevant to the SDGs, and the role of public health in taking action to achieve the goals.

KIT:BAG

A partnership dedicated to tackling the impact of textile waste in the football industry has been launched between The University of Manchester and RÆBURN Design – a leading sustainable fashion studio. The new project, KIT:BAG by RÆBURN, will work with local sportswear suppliers and the local community to transform surplus football shirts into unique reusable tote bags, while educating them of the environmental impacts of textile waste and how we can extend the life of our garments. It aims to provide a fun, responsible way to keep kits in circulation while shining a light on the large-scale problem in the industry.

Founders and Funders

Founders and Funders: Slavery and the building of a University is an exhibition at the University’s John Rylands Research Institute. It explores how profits from slave trading, ownership of enslaved people, and manufacturing with slave-grown cotton funded the cultural and educational development of Manchester. Core to the exhibition is research conducted by a diverse team of emerging scholars who undertook the Race, Migration & Humanitarianism: Legacies of Slavery and Colonialism in the Modern World module as part of their MA History. This is an important step on a journey we started with the initial research into our University’s links to slavery, in conjunction with seeking the views of staff, students and alumni.

Addressing gender disparity in Kenya and Uganda

Elimisha Msichana Elimisha Jamii na Astronomia (Swahili for “educate a girl, educate the entire community with Astronomy”) is a project founded by Faculty of Science and Engineering PhD student Ann Njeri. The project is addressing the issue of gender disparity and inequality in education amongst girls in rural Kenya and Uganda through outreach, mentorship, scholarships and targeted STEM workshop programmes which are guided by long-term student tracking and monitoring.

Alternative Football League

Co-founded by the University’s Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health PhD student Beth Barnes, the Alternative Football League (AF League) is the North West’s only fully inclusive football league for women, non-binary and transgender individuals. AF League have three leagues across Manchester and Liverpool with 30 teams and over 400 players. They aim to use football as a platform to improve the mental health of women and non-binary people throughout the UK with their very own mental health and inclusivity workshops.

Maretório

Maretório is a project focussed on making space to facilitate meaningful communication about climate change for those vulnerable, coastal communities in Brazil who may be most affected by it. University of Manchester team members have collaborated with other institutional partners to create educational resources and children’s games to empower local people to engage with climate change as they view it and using language that is personal and relevant to them.

Tackling COVID-19 in Kenya’s slums

Funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund, a cross-disciplinary team, including researchers from the University of Manchester, have improved Covid outcomes in Kenya’s slums. The project aimed to identify local knowledge and attitudes surrounding Covid and implement an effective public health campaign. All work on the ground was conducted by trained local field workers, in cooperation with community health volunteers, local officials and village elders, ensuring messages were communicated through trusted personnel with knowledge of the local area and language. The findings from the study highlighted that consistent and targeted health campaigns in informal settlements can facilitate compliance, engagement and understanding alongside ongoing public health campaigns.

Dentistry across continents

The Sri Lankan Civil War limited the influx of medical knowledge into the region for almost 30 years. Since then, healthcare practitioners of affected areas have been striving to update their practice to provide modern treatments for the local population. In 2011, the University of Manchester set up a continuous professional development (CPD) team in Sri Lanka, providing lectures to help improve healthcare knowledge and practice. Our academics visit each year and with support from our University and the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), have helped with capacity building, skill sharing programmes, student exchange opportunities and school community engagement projects.

Multilingual World

Multilingual World is a podcast hosted by Dr Serge Sagne, a lecturer in linguistics and current lead of the Linguistic Diversity Collective where he explores multilingualism and linguistic diversity across the globe. The video podcast features Dr Sagna in conversation with leading academics, and multilingual speakers living in Manchester where they discuss their relationship with language, identity and their experience learning, transmitting, and using languages in Manchester. The podcast production is supported by Creative Manchester. Visit and subscribe to the Multilingual World YouTube channel here.

Creating prosperous communities

We’re unique among UK universities in having social responsibility as a core goal in our strategic plan, Our Future. Our vision for prosperous communities is to increase economic well being, develop new sectors, innovate, and improve productivity for all people and all areas of our city region. We’re using our knowledge and discovery to enhance innovation in key economic sectors of the national and regional economy through initiatives and also working in partnership and sharing our knowledge and expertise locally and nationally to advance prosperity by prioritising University engagement on national and regional economic policy developments.

International Mother Language Day

We participate in the UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day every year, celebrating the cultural diversity and multilingualism in Manchester. The events to commemorate this day are focused on language and are led by our libraries, community groups, neighbouring schools, poets, and writers.

Talking Science Competition

Each year, the University’s Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health (FBMH) hosts the ‘Talking Science Competition’ where second year undergraduate students and above are invited to share their ideas on how science can create a healthier, fairer and greener world, creating a unique opportunity to talk about a subject that really matters to them.

Age-friendly Greater Manchester

To mark the UN’s International Day of Older Persons we have created a booklet which showcases the different ways older age is experienced in Greater Manchester, alongside an accompanying animation. This booklet offers a guide to a more immersive, flexible, creative and participatory approach for engaging with those within the category – enabling policy communities, academics, and others to gain a richer, localised and more personal understanding of what it means to be an older person. The project also responds to research and campaigns that have found representations of older age often fall back on medicalised, stereotypical accounts of what constitutes older lives.

Conducting ‘Mediated Dialogue’

Academics from the University have worked with practitioners from the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation to develop a framework and toolkit for conducting ‘mediated dialogue’ with groups in conflict. The framework and toolkit is used in community safety and neighbourhood team roles, restorative youth or community practices by social services and youth offending teams for a broader range of groups experiencing escalating conflict or as an opportunity to repair relationships.

Manchester Museum’s Indigenise Speaker Series

Manchester Museum is taking action to Indigenise and decolonise its collections. As part of this, they have been hosting annual Indigenise Speaker Series, which brings together Indigenous scholars and projects from around the world to participate in activities and discuss how to empower Indigenous communities and collaborate with them at the museum.

Irene Manton Lecture

Each year, we host the Irene Manton Lecture in partnership with the Linnean Society of London which celebrates the significant contribution made by women to the Natural Sciences.

DentMan conference

We have an annual, student-led DentMan conference which seeks to encourage students in dentistry to explore our pioneering humanising dentistry concept and give them freedom and space to engage with the community and the wider global society through outreach and volunteering programmes. It also provides a platform for dental students to demonstrate and recognise how they have made a difference to dental health inequalities across Greater Manchester and beyond. In recent years, the conference has reached a global audience, with over 200 staff, students, and oral healthcare professionals from both the University of Manchester and University of Ghana in attendance.

Manchester Museum’s Carbon Literacy toolkit

We launched the first ever museum-sector-specific Carbon Literacy toolkit as part of Roots & Branches, a partnership between Manchester Museum, Museum Development North West (MDNW), and The Carbon Literacy project. The toolkit helps museum professionals and volunteers undertake training, to then certify as Carbon Literate. This foundational work supports staff, volunteers, and partners to build their understanding of climate action, so that they can make informed sustainable choices. The project also encourages museums to develop organisational pledges to act against climate change.

LGBT+ History Month

Each year our University marks LGBT+ History Month with a variety of events, awareness raising activities and calls to action to mark the contribution and importance the LGBT+ community has had on the University. Events include exploring aspects of LGBT+ inclusion and a screening of a documentary focusing on intersectionality, followed by a discussion. Members of our alumni are also invited to join a panel where they discuss the theme allocated to LGBT+ History Month for that year.

International Women’s Day

Each year we celebrate International Women’s Day with various events and activities for students and staff to partake in to increase awareness about discrimination, recognise women’s achievements and take action to drive gender equity.

Schools Poetry Competition

Each year our University’s Creative Manchester hosts the Schools Poetry Competition, where students across Greater Manchester are encouraged to express themselves through writing poems relating to a particular theme. Winning entries from the competition are featured on Manchester City of Literature’s inaugural Schools Writing Trail, a city-wide exhibition of the ‘best of the best’ student writing displayed, in conjunction with the Festival of Libraries.

Being Human Festival

Being Human is the UK’s National Festival of the humanities, which celebrates how the discipline enriches everyday living and helps us understand a changing world. Each year, our researchers collaborate with local community and cultural partners to create exciting and engaging events and projects for all to enjoy.

ESRC Festival of Social Science

The ESRC festival of Social Science is an annual celebration of the research conducted in social sciences and its profound impact on society. It offers a fascinating insight into some of the country’s leading research and how it influences our social, economic, and political lives – both now and in the future. The festival is open to everyone and is a unique opportunity to engage directly with researchers about the projects they work on.

Directory of activities