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.
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.
Making a Difference Awards
Each year, we host the Making a Difference Awards to celebrate the incredible and inspiring work of our University community. The awards highlight the extensive range of social responsibility initiatives of our staff, students, alumni and external partners, and covers categories such as benefit to research; widening participation; environmental sustainability and equality, diversity and inclusion.
Reducing the University’s air travel emissions
We have cut our air travel emissions by 46% compared to pre-pandemic levels, decreasing them from 18,641 tonnes of CO2e (CO2equivalent) in 2018/19 to just over 10,000 tonnes of CO2e in 2022/23. The reduction in our emissions is equivalent to the carbon produced from driving over 32.5 million miles in an average petrol car. Our new travel policy, which was put into effect last year, supports our ambition to be a leader in developing sustainable research and teaching practices. It includes several changes such as encouraging staff to have meetings online rather than in-person and to consider travelling by rail rather than air.
From Boys to Men
‘From Boys to Men’, a project from our School of Social Sciences, explores why some boys become domestic abuse perpetrators and what more can be done to prevent it. The ground-breaking research findings led to a number of significant interventions at a local and national level. The findings also contributed to Greater Manchester’s Combined Authority’s (GMCA) 10-year strategy to tackle gender-based violence, and the toolkit generated by the project has influenced school-based preventative strategies as well as being rolled out in Malta, France and Spain.
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.
Preventing aquatic ecosystem damage
Our work in hydrology and hydrochemistry to understand metals, carbon and gases in water systems has led to the development of a highly successful spin-out company, Salamander, which has brought to market two cutting-edge pieces of water monitoring software – chloroclam and hydroclam – which are being used in industry to improve water and marine system monitoring. We have also undertaken work to understand hypoxia – dead fish zones – which has directly informed marine industry practice on aquatic ecosystems.
Renewable energy pledge
100% of our electricity consumption is backed with REGO (‘Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin’) certification. This means that for every megawatt (or 1,000kWh) of electricity the University consumes, the equivalent volume of electricity is generated from renewable sources.
We encourage our staff, students and our local community to make a similar move to renewable energy suppliers!
Social responsibility partnerships
Examples of our civic partnerships include:
We also prioritise global partnerships to advance our work towards the SDGs. These include:
Policy@Manchester
Policy@Manchester is our University’s sector-leading policy engagement institute.
It connects researchers with policymakers and influencers, nurturing long-term policy engagement partnerships and impact.
Public engagement partnerships
We partner with a range of organisations to carry out meaningful public engagement with diverse audiences and share ideas and research as well as inspiring informed discussion, debate and creativity.
Examples include:
Q-Step data partnerships
We partner with small local charities in Manchester right through to major government departments through our Q-Step programme.
This places students on internships in organisations that require data skills and analysis and we’ve collaborated on projects with the Office for National Statistics on global, national and regional datasets used to measure progress on SDGs.
Student learning partnerships
We’re committed to empowering students with the knowledge, skills and opportunities to address all of the SDGs through partnerships with public, private and civil society organisations.
Our University Living Lab platform connects student projects with external organisations to address the SDGs.
Our Volunteer Hub acts to advance partnerships between hundreds of charities and our student volunteers.
And many academic programmes offer service-learning partnerships, where external organisations benefit from practical student interventions in areas such as dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, business and legal advice.
Justice Hub
Our Justice Hub allows students to explore and apply various arms of the law to make real change in our communities.
The Hub runs a free legal advice centre for economically disadvantaged people in areas such as family, housing and immigration law.
During the pandemic, our Justice Hub set up the Virtual Vacation Scheme, which aimed to simplify some very complicated areas of law impacted by the pandemic, and created an accessible and informative method of legal help for the community through workshops, videos, briefings and webinars.
Manchester Innocence Project
As part of our Justice Hub, The Manchester Innocence Project (MIP) is one of only 13 organisations outside of the US to join the Innocence Network.
Law students volunteering with MIP have the opportunity to take on live criminal appeals for those who maintain their innocence.
Nature Recovery Network
A renowned engagement expert from our School of Environment, Education and Development is using her Ketso Connect community and stakeholder engagement toolkit to help the government’s Natural England advisers launch their National Recovery Network.
This network aims to restore 75% of protected sites and to create or restore 500,000 hectares of additional wildlife-rich habitat.
The project is piloting public and civic engagement models with local libraries across Manchester.
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.
Removing harmful pollutants from industrial wastewater with innovative technology
Researchers in Chemical Engineering and Analytical Sciences have worked with our spin-out company Arvia Technology to develop an electrochemical process that has dramatically reduced wastewater pollution levels and enabled water recycling across numerous industries.
The Arvia process has reduced pollutant levels from pesticides to match UK drinking water standards; removed 90% of pharmaceutical residues and natural hormones from industrial wastewater; and reduced the release of high microbial wastewaters which can cause anti-microbial resistance.
Arvia Technology has now installed treatment systems in 25 companies across 11 countries, including the UK and China.
Diverseafood
Through the Diverseafood project, our researchers are investigating how seafood can contribute to sustainable, healthy diets.
They are assessing the best methods to transition to more diverse seafood intake by looking at the impacts of sustainable aquaculture at the levels of business models, policy, and consumer acceptance.
Divesting from fossil fuels
We’re ending investments in fossil fuel reserve and extraction companies by 2022, and ‘decarbonising’ all other investments by 2038.
This policy was developed in consultation with the University’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and our Students’ Union.
The carbon footprint of the music industry
Climate scientists at our Tyndall Centre are partnering with Bristol-based band Massive Attack to jointly examine the carbon footprint of the music industry.
Utilising data from the Massive Attack touring schedule will provide information and guidance to the wider music industry to reduce negative environmental impacts.
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.
Changing how international policy organisations understand and manage environmental problems
Research by Alliance Manchester Business School has demonstrated how large-scale transitions are needed to deliver significant climate change.
This has transformed how reducing greenhouse gas emissions is understood and addressed by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and has fed directly into policy recommendations made by the European Environment Agency.
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.
