Our criminology researchers have linked up with leading research and technology development company, Trilateral Research, to collaborate on Project Honeycomb.

This develops relationships with organisations across the private, public and civil society sectors, and supports them to record information related to modern slavery, human trafficking and exploitation.

Building on these insights, Honeycomb runs a series of campaigns and helps the city intelligently and creatively protect people from the crimes of human trafficking and modern slavery as well as interrupting traffickers’ activities.

An Independent Inequalities Commission involved two experts from the University set out a range of measures for tackling inequality and transforming public policy across Greater Manchester.

The Commission outlined specific, ambitious recommendations for the future of our city-region, covering economic growth, health, wellbeing, jobs, housing, transport, skills and training, which will be embedded within public service delivery at all levels and informs the elected Mayor’s next Greater Manchester Strategy.

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.

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.

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.

In Place of War (IPOW) is a global spin-out charity from research in our School of Music and Drama.

IPOW works with grassroots organisations in refugee camps, war-affected villages, towns under curfew, cities under occupation, and refugee communities, using creativity in places of conflict as a proven tool for positive change.

IPOW enables communities and grassroots change-makers in music, theatre and across the arts to transform a culture of violence and suffering into hope, opportunity and freedom.

• Stonewall Top 50 employer for LGBTQ+ equality
• Bronze Award for Race Equality (use logo)
• 15 Athena SWAN Chartermarks for Gender Equality
• Care Leaver Covenant signed to support care leavers to live independently.
• University of Sanctuary status in support of our work with refugee and asylum seeker students

Our latest Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) annual report shows that:

• 3% of employees disclosed that they are disabled
• 9% of staff declare they are Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic
• 5% of our staff are female
• 8% of staff classify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or other
• 22% of students are the first in their immediate family to gain a degree
• 1.1% of students (407) are from low or lower-middle income countries as defined by the World Bank.