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Search these pages to explore a selection of our directory of activities. You can use the keyword search and filter buttons to discover how we are addressing each of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and the five priorities in our Social Responsibility and Civic Engagement Plan. You can also filter activities by location and function.
searching subjects: Social inclusion
We recognise there are barriers for some of our students in accessing appropriate work experience.
We offer financial support for full-time undergraduates of all years to undertake career-enhancing work experience for those who otherwise couldn’t have afforded it.
Our Work and Equalities Institute is providing the evidence base to inform global employment debates and policies.
Research in three key areas is undertaken: minimum wage and collective bargaining; the gender pay gap; and precarious work.
This work is shaping guidance produced by international policy bodies and national policies of multiple countries, and is also providing evidence for European trade unions in their interactions with EU and national policymakers.
Our Equality and Diversity Policy prevents discrimination based on gender and/or sex.
Our Dignity at Work and Study Policy covers harassment and discrimination against women.
Our Report and Support system addresses alleged cases of bullying, sexual harassment or discrimination.
Our Gender Pay Gap report measures differences between the average (mean and median) earnings of men and women who work at our university.
The median gender pay gap (GPG) is 11.8%, while the mean is 17.2%, which is caused by the under-representation of women in senior roles.
We therefore aim to increase the number of women who are senior lecturers, readers and professors (currently 32%) until they are representative of the pool of women at lecturer level (currently 47%).
We recognise and value unpaid care and domestic work, which can often fall disproportionately on women.
We therefore strive to provide a range of policies and schemes that promote shared caring and domestic responsibilities.
These include our Parental Leave policies, provision of our two subsidised campus nurseries, and our new policy to trial hybrid working, which will support greater inclusion and flexibility for our staff.
We have a range of initiatives that empower women and girls to enter predominantly male fields such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Our academics have set up ScienceGrrl – a grassroots network to address the under-representation of women in science and engineering.
A Women in Environmental Science group has been established to create space for environmental discussion among women from diverse backgrounds.
We also host Girls Night Out – a twice-yearly event at our Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre to celebrate and encourage females to pursue careers in STEM.
In partnership with the Manchester United Foundation, our Girls in STEM Day programme invites 12- and 13-year-old girls to campus to celebrate National Engineering Day.
We work in collaboration with Association des Guides du Rwanda (AGR) to provide volunteer opportunities for students to help girls and young women in Rwanda acquire skills for their development and become agents of positive change.
Our students started a Misogyny Is Hate campaign, leading to the government directing police to record crimes motivated by a person’s sex or gender for the first time.
Our Students’ Union also runs Reclaim the Night, resulting in around 2,000 women marching in the streets each year to raise awareness of sexual harassment and gender-based violence.
Gender equality is embedded across our whole curriculum, and a wide range of our degrees offer course units on gender and sexuality.
For examples, Religion and Theology students assess the impact of changing gender roles on religious traditions, while our MA in Gender, Sexuality and Culture brings together scholars from many different fields to explore feminist and queer theory, sexual identities and gender history.
We produced On Gender to identify what we know – and what we need to know – about gender inequality in tackling the big policy agendas devolved to Greater Manchester and other areas, with devolution deals in areas such as ageing, labour markets, education, parenting and sexual violence.
Our research into agriculture and apparel sectors in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and collaboration with three large UK retailers, has led to more than 390,000 workers in value chains in low- and middle-income countries directly benefiting from the implementation of gender-equitable strategies.
More than a million workers have been indirectly advantaged through opportunities for women to advance to leadership positions and new strategies from companies that have the potential to reach 33 million workers in 180 countries.
Our University Library is one of only five National Research Libraries in the UK.
It offers reference facilities to north-west sixth-form and mature students and their teachers to help with A-level, vocational and Access course work.
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.
Our Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health partners with Manchester Metropolitan University and Keele University on Imagine Me Stories.
This is a school library diversity initiative designed to tackle under-representation in UK school libraries by curating diverse resources and promoting better representation in literature for all students.
Our Science and Engineering Education Research and Innovation Hub undertakes a range of public engagement campaigns.
These include the Great Science Share for Schools and the Greater Manchester Engineering Challenge, which enhances the University’s work in broadening the pipeline of young people with an interest in STEM subjects.
We partner with the IntoUniversity Manchester North educational charity to support and engage some of the most disadvantaged young people in Manchester.
IntoUniversity helps young people to attain a university place or another chosen aspiration. 71% of its students progress to university, compared with 43% of students from similar backgrounds nationally.
During the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns of 2020, our partnership with the Tutor Trust charity provided online sessions to ensure disadvantaged students didn’t suffer the risk of falling behind in their education without regular teaching in the classroom.
Students from The University of Manchester make up more than half of those who work as Tutor Trust tutors in Manchester.
Alongside our conventional course units, we offer a range of interdisciplinary units open to all students that ensure inclusive, sustainable and equitable education.
These include Creating a Sustainable World: 21st Century Challenges and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: Your Role in Shaping a Fairer World.
#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.
The collaborative History Lessons research project found that young people were keen to learn more inclusive histories, but teachers needed additional support and new resources for a more inclusive curriculum.
From this, we developed Our Migration Story with The Runnymede Trust and University of Cambridge, creating multiple award-winning web resources, lesson plans and classroom activities exploring the opportunities and challenges faced by Britain’s migrant communities.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
