Our work on Goal 16

Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

As one of the world’s leading research institutions and the UK’s first university to have social responsibility as a core goal, we’re tackling the SDGs in four inter-related ways: through our research, learning and students, public engagement activity and operations.

Here’s a selection of our work addressing Goal 16.

Research

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.

On Gender

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.

 

Learning and students

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.

Students’ and women’s rights

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.

 

Public engagement

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.

In Place of War project

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.

 

Operations

University governance

We have a duty to conduct our affairs in a responsible and transparent way.

The Board of Governors is our governing body, carrying ultimate responsibility for our overall strategic direction and for the management of our finances, property and affairs generally, including the employment arrangements for all staff. Its membership of 23 has a majority of persons who aren’t employed by the University, known as lay members and its Chair is appointed by the Board from within the lay category of the membership. Members of our Senate, support staff and student representatives are also elected to serve on the Board.

The General Assembly is a much larger body than the Board of Governors. In common with the Board, it has a majority of lay members. Lay members are drawn from a wide range of local, regional and national interests, and together they offer the University a wealth of experience and expertise from differing perspectives and backgrounds. 

Socially responsible policies

Our Anti-Corruption and Bribery Policy takes a zero-tolerance approach to bribery and corruption in all of our University operations.

Our Academic Freedom Policy and Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech ensures staff can put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions without placing themselves at risk of losing their jobs or any privileges.

Our Policy for Socially Responsible Investment pursues an ethical investment approach. We’ve also signed up to the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment.