Goal 10: Research

The University’s research activities play a key role in our approach to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Here’s a wider showcase of our work addressing Goal 10. Find out about our researchers, research outputs, research projects and activities connected to the SDGs through The University of Manchester Research Explorer.

Greater Manchester Civic University Partners support creative health initiative with Arts Council England funding

Greater Manchester is set to become the first Creative Health City Region, thanks to a £800,000 grant from Arts Council England’s National Lottery-funded Place Partnership Fund. Led by NHS Greater Manchester and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, this ambitious three-year project will unite public services, health and social care providers, cultural and voluntary organisations, higher education institutions, and local communities. The goal is to use creativity, culture, and heritage to tackle health inequalities and enhance the wellbeing of residents. 

In a significant show of collaboration, the Greater Manchester Civic University Agreement partners – University of Bolton, Manchester Metropolitan University, The University of Manchester, The University of Salford and The Royal Northern College of Music – will play a pivotal role in the research and learning elements of the initiative under the banner of the Mayor’s Civic University Agreement. 

SMARThealth programme

As the fourth most heavily populated country in the world, the burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Indonesia is particularly alarming, accounting for 1 in 3 deaths. The SMARThealth programme tackle the high risk of CVD in rural parts of Indonesia and is projected to prevent 120,000 deaths. The team designed the SMARThealth app as a low-cost intervention to tackle CVD in Indonesia.

University’s Sustainable Development Goals annual report

Each year we launch a report which highlights how we are addressing key issues facing humanity as set-out by the United Nations.  As the UK’s first university to have social responsibility as a core goal, we’ve developed a strategy to tackle the SDGs in four inter-related ways: through our research, learning and students, public engagement and operations.   

Our latest SDG report shows that the University published over 22,000 pieces of research on the SDGs in the past five years, which is 4% of the UK’s entire share of publications. It details teaching and learning programmes that address the SDGs, such as our ‘Creating a Sustainable World’ interdisciplinary unit. 

Global Futures

Global Futures is a global health strategy that aims to transform health outcomes, with a focus on levelling up healthcare provision and uplifting health systems globally. The strategy has been developed in direct response to predictions made by the World Health Organisation regarding the future of global health. 

The Greater Manchester Citizens Panel

The Greater Manchester Citizens Panel contributes to the strategic direction of the Greater Manchester Civic University Agreement, Greater Manchester Universities and research projects at the University of Manchester. 

The panel’s role is to analyse, understand, and act on the views of citizens across the city region. The panel is also supporting researchers at The University of Manchester to connect their work with the citizens of Greater Manchester. 

Making Manchester Fairer

University of Manchester academics are working closely with Manchester City Council to tackle health inequalities.  

Making Manchester Fairer is Manchester City Council’s action plan to address health inequalities in the city. The plan draws on lived experiences and research to address the socioeconomic factors that drive inequalities between people with the worst health and people with the best health. 

Local matters programme

The University’s Institute of Education has developed Local Matters, an initiative that empowers staff in primary and secondary schools to engage in action-based research to develop an evidence based local response to local issues.  

We work alongside and empower the school and community through a range of research skills and principles to create a localised, evidence-based response to local issues. The approach recognises that poverty is different in different places; Southampton is not the same as Bradford, so requires localised knowledge and localised answers. Essentially, it supports school staff to become place-based social justice researchers. 

Global Development Institute

Our Global Development Institute is the UK’s largest university-based postgraduate centre specialising in international development. The institute addresses global inequalities to promote a socially-just world.  

Emeritus Professor Stephanie Barrientos, from the Global Development Institute, has been elected as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fairtrade Foundation, bringing her research experience in corporate social responsibility, trade and labour standards, gender, and fair and ethical trade in global value chains. 

Whose Campus, Whose Security?

Led by academics at the University of Manchester, a new report, Whose Campus, Whose Security? draws upon a national survey and localised interviews in Greater Manchester to centre on the perspectives of students. In line with our commitment to Social Responsibility and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, the national research warns that harmful securitisation practices can undermine efforts to create a welcoming environment for all students. The report urges higher education institutions to do more to ensure an inclusive and welcoming environment for all students. The full report, the executive summary, and a graphic abstract can be accessed through the CoDE website, and pieces from the authors can be found in Times Higher Education, and WonkHE. 

Addressing racial disproportionality in police vehicle stops

Our researchers have been working with The University of Liverpool on an ethnographic study of police vehicle stops. The findings suggested Black men are routinely subjected to stop and search vehicle checks more than any other group. From this, our researchers made several recommendations including for all police vehicle stops to be recorded, to identify any racial disproportionality in their use and investigate links between vehicle stops and disproportionality in stop and search. This study has significantly influenced national policy and practice on racial disproportionality in the use of police powers.

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. 

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.

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.

Historic links with slavery

Dr Natalie Zacek, Senior Lecturer in American Studies and Professor Nalin Thakkar, Vice President for Social Responsibility have conducted preliminary research that analyses the connections between the University’s predecessor institutions and historical slavery. This research has been carried out in response to our Race Matters report. The article has initiated new conversations that seek to address the implications, responsibilities and opportunities for the University to develop a deeper understanding of the past.

Early Career Race Network

Based at our University, the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity in collaboration with RACE.ED has developed the Early Career Race Network. The organisation aids early-career scholars specialising in ethnicity and race through regular online and in person workshops that provide support in navigating a career in academia.

Caring in a Changing Climate

Dr. Sherilyn MacGregor, Reader in Environmental Politics at our University, is the lead author of a major report ‘Caring in a Changing Climate‘ commissioned by Oxfam America that investigates the impacts of climate breakdown, climate mitigation and adaptations on care work. The report calls for greater actions to limit greenhouse gas emissions and a more significant focus on the nexus of climate and care work within policy and research. It points to the need for climate initiatives to pursue gender-transformative approaches via the adoption of care sensitive interventions.

Improving the wellbeing of LGBTQ+ people of colour

University of Manchester researchers are collaborating with staff at Black Beetle Health to exchange expertise to better understand the support services available to LGBTQ+ people of colour and build capacity among community organisations for research activities. Black Beetle Health is a Manchester-based digital public health charity which supports the health and wellbeing of Black LGBTQ+ people.

Project Honeycomb

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.

Independent Inequalities Commission

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.

Work and Equalities Institute

Our Work and Equalities Institute identifies and promotes the conditions for more inclusive and fair work and employment arrangements.

The research explores challenges for equality, fairness and sustainability in the workplace, and considers how employers are responding to the challenge of an increasingly diverse workforce and what new institutions are needed to enforce fair rights and responsibilities at work.