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.

Experts from our Manchester Institute of Education are working with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and all of the city-region’s secondary schools on a pioneering #BeeWell project.

The first of its kind in the UK, this project will survey and create a dynamic online data dashboard on wellbeing, enabling teachers and leaders to use it as part of a continuous cycle of improvement.

This will provide evidence to inform local and national governmental policy for young people’s wellbeing.

Our university has contributed to the Global University Social Responsibility Massive Online Open Course (MOOC), which allows users to learn about the general framework of university social responsibility as well as understand effective practices to design, plan, implement, and evaluate their own activities.

The voices of 40 migrant-background 14-18-year-olds in Manchester and Melbourne have taken part in producing a climate education resource for teachers, students and researchers, entitled Young People at a Crossroads: Stories of climate education, action and adaptation from around the world. The project was led by the University of Manchester’s Sustainable Consumption Institute in partnership with researchers at the University of Melbourne. The team set out to explore and enable conversations about climate change in homes where, through migration, parents and young people grew up in times and places with different exposures to environmental challenges and different information about climate change.

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.

The University has one of the UK’s most extensive programmes of work with local state schools and colleges. In accordance with the University’s access and participation plan with the Office for Students, we deliver a School Governor Initiative that helps staff and alumni to find volunteering placements as governors in local schools.

We signed the international SDG Accord as part of our ongoing commitment to social responsibility and environmental sustainability. Our Alliance Manchester Business School also signed the Principles for Responsible Management in Education (PRME). We are a founding member of the UK’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).

Our Equity and Merit Programme supports the brightest minds from some of the least developed countries in Sub-Saharan Africa – Ethiopia, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe – to develop skills for sustainable development in their home countries.

Thanks to funding by the University and the generosity of our donors, more than 300 international students have completed master’s programmes with us.