Steve, who joined the University on 2 November, will provide strategic, commercial and operational leadership for the (GEIC) and the University's involvement in the (SMMC).

He brings extensive experience of industrial innovation and commercialisation, having previously served as Chief Executive of the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and, before that, the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), one of the UK's foremost partnerships between industry and academia. Earlier in his career, he spent more than 20 years with Siemens, holding senior leadership roles in the UK, Europe and China.

The appointment marks an important step in the University's plans to establish a connected national platform for advanced materials innovation, helping businesses access the expertise, specialist facilities and partnerships they need to develop new technologies and bring them to market.

The approach builds on complementary strengths across two locations.

GEIC, based on Manchester's Oxford Road corridor, is an established industry-facing facility supporting the development and commercialisation of graphene, 2D materials and wider advanced materials technologies. It connects companies with technical expertise, industrially relevant equipment and the University's research capabilities.

SMMC, developed by Rochdale Development Agency (RDA) and operated by Ģ����Ƶ, is a new innovation and specialist manufacturing scale-up centre at the heart of the Atom Valley Innovation District in Rochdale. Its base build was completed in October, with specialist fit-out and operational preparations underway ahead of opening in 2027.

Together, the centres will provide a clearer route for businesses to move from technical challenges and product development through validation, prototyping and manufacturing readiness towards scale-up and commercial adoption.

This approach also builds on the successful national collaboration model developed through the Centre of Expertise in Advanced Materials and Sustainability (CEAMS), which connects businesses with existing specialist expertise and facilities across the UK. Rather than duplicating national innovation assets, CEAMS makes it easier for companies to find and access them, bringing together the right capabilities around their needs.

The University is also lead delivery partner for the £16.4 million Atom Valley Innovation District programme, supported by UK Research and Innovation's Local Innovation Partnerships Fund (LIPF), a flagship £500 million UK Government programme investing in regional innovation economies across the country. This investment will accelerate the development of an advanced materials and manufacturing ecosystem around SMMC, supporting business innovation and the growth of the wider cluster.

As Managing Director, Steve will lead the development of the centres' commercial and operational strategy, building industry partnerships and attracting new business activity while strengthening connections with regional and national innovation partners.

The role sits within Unit M, the University's innovation directorate, and supports the university's Manchester 2035 strategy in its ambition to become Europe's most inclusive and impactful innovation ecosystem.

Professor John Holden, Vice-President for Civic Engagement and Innovation, and Chief Executive of Unit M at the University of Manchester, said: “Steve brings an exceptional combination of industrial leadership, commercial experience and a strong track record of working across industry and academia. His experience at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre and Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult makes him particularly well placed to lead the next phase of development for GEIC and our role within SMMC.

“Steve's leadership will be central to our ambition to create the UK's most connected advanced materials cluster, building on GEIC's achievements and realising the potential of SMMC to support manufacturing innovation and industrial growth.

“Working with partners including Rochdale Development Agency, we've made significant progress in developing SMMC at Atom Valley. Steve's appointment will help us build on that investment, connect it with GEIC's established strengths and create new opportunities for businesses to innovate, scale and grow.”

Councillor Daniel Meredith, Rochdale Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Housing said: “The Sustainable Materials & Manufacturing Centre is a major investment in Rochdale's future and a cornerstone of our ambitions for Atom Valley. We've worked closely with the University of Manchester to bring the centre to this stage, and Steve's appointment is an important step towards realising its full potential.

“His experience of working with industry and developing successful innovation partnerships will be invaluable as we look to attract new businesses, investment and skilled jobs to Rochdale. We want Atom Valley to become a place where advanced manufacturing businesses can establish themselves and grow, and SMMC will have a central role in making that happen.”

Steve Foxley said: “The UK has some extraordinary strengths in research and engineering, particularly around advanced materials, but the challenge is making sure those strengths translate into successful businesses, competitive industries and real economic growth. That's something I've been passionate about throughout my career, and it's what attracted me to this opportunity at Manchester.

“GEIC has already built a strong reputation for working with industry, and the development of SMMC at Atom Valley creates an opportunity to take that capability further. By connecting the expertise, facilities and partnerships across both centres, we can help businesses overcome some of the practical challenges of developing, testing and scaling new technologies.

“I'm looking forward to working with the teams, our industry partners and the wider innovation community to build on what's already been achieved and make a real difference to UK manufacturing.”

Ģ����Ƶ’s John Rylands Library has taken a selection of its historic Coptic and Ethiopian manuscripts out of the library and into the community, giving hundreds of people the rare opportunity to encounter their heritage first-hand.

The special exhibition - held on 1 November at St Mary & St Mina Coptic Orthodox Church in Stockport - attracted more than 400 visitors and their children, many of whom travelled from across the UK to see manuscripts dating back as far as the tenth century.

The event brought together curators, academics and members of Greater Manchester’s Coptic community, many of whom had previously had little opportunity to engage directly with the library’s extensive collection of manuscripts written in Coptic - an ancient Egyptian language.

The event was organised by Dr Ibrahim Saweros and Dr Jeremy Penner, and formed part of , a two-year research project led by Dr Sarah Parkhouse at Ģ����Ƶ.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the project aims to bring manuscript research into conversation with the knowledge and experiences of the communities whose histories are represented in library and museum collections.

Visitors were provided with an exhibition booklet and had the opportunity to speak with the project team about the manuscripts, their history and their significance. The enthusiasm of the congregation - particularly younger visitors - demonstrated the potential for cultural institutions to build meaningful relationships with communities whose heritage they preserve.

For many attendees, the experience was more than an opportunity to see historical artefacts - the manuscripts offered a tangible connection to the language, faith and traditions of previous generations, and a chance to explore how those traditions have evolved over the centuries.

The project hopes that this encounter will be the first of many, as libraries and museums look for new ways to make their collections accessible and relevant to the communities whose histories they hold.

Among the manuscripts on display were biblical texts, Coptic liturgies and a Holy Week lectionary, alongside two parchment manuscripts from Egypt’s White Monastery containing sermons by St Shenoute of Atripe, a hugely influential fifth-century monastic leader.

Visitors were also able to see fragments of an ancient Coptic translation of the Gospel of Matthew, written on papyrus, and an eighteenth-century Ethiopian manuscript recounting the life and miracles of St George.

The encounter offered a rare opportunity to explore these objects in the setting of a living religious community, connecting centuries of written history with traditions that continue to be practised in Greater Manchester today.

“There is something quite remarkable about a manuscript written centuries ago finding itself once again among people who know its prayers, recognise its saints and continue its traditions,” said Dr Jeremy Penner, Senior Curator at the John Rylands Library.

Lecturers and students have significantly different perceptions of how much generative artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in university studies, according to new research from Ģ����Ƶ and Spain’s Universidad del Pais Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea.

The study found that academic staff perceived students to be using AI tools such as ChatGPT for their studies much more extensively than students reported themselves. Researchers say the findings highlight a gap in understanding between staff and students, at a time when universities are grappling with how best to respond to the technology.

A gap in understanding

The research examined how academic staff and students perceived their own use of generative AI tools, as well as their views of how the technology was being used in higher education.

The study surveyed 45 academic staff and 86 students in a School covering social science disciplines at a UK research-intensive university. The questionnaires were conducted between April and June 2024.

When asked about students’ use of AI for academic purposes, staff gave an average rating of 5.23 on a seven-point scale. Students’ own responses produced an average of 3.11.

The researchers caution that students may have underreported their use of AI, but say the difference nevertheless points to the limited information staff may have about how students use these tools in their studies.

AI use can be difficult for lecturers to identify, particularly when they see only the final version of an assignment rather than the process through which it was produced. Students may also use AI independently of their interactions with teaching staff, leaving academics with an incomplete picture of their working practices.

Different attitudes towards AI

The research also found that students were generally more positive than staff about the potential benefits of generative AI.

Students rated the technology more highly in terms of its likely contribution to academic performance, including helping them learn about their subjects, increasing productivity and reducing workloads. They also felt more strongly than staff that appropriate conditions and support were in place to help them use AI tools.

Among the uses identified in the survey, students reported using generative AI to find answers to questions and assignments, generate written work, and translate or improve the grammar of their writing.

The researchers suggest that the immediate appeal of AI tools may lie in their ability to produce and improve text. However, they argue that universities need to understand the range of ways students use the technology, rather than assume that its role in academic work is straightforward.

The study also found considerable variation in staff members’ familiarity with AI. While 63 per cent of academic staff respondents had used at least one generative AI tool in the six months before the survey, some had limited practical experience of the technology. Only 14 per cent had a paid subscription to an AI tool.

The authors argue that the challenges posed by AI in higher education cannot be resolved simply by providing technical training or improving students’ AI literacy. Instead, universities need to consider how staff and students understand the technology, what they believe it can do, and how those beliefs shape its use.

Rethinking the response to AI

The researchers say that assuming students are using AI primarily to circumvent assessment rules risks creating a relationship based on distrust. While acknowledging that AI can be used in ways that undermine academic integrity, they argue that universities need a more nuanced understanding of students’ practices.

They suggest that teaching and assessment should evolve in response to the capabilities of generative AI, with staff and students better supported to explore its appropriate educational uses.

The authors also stress that the research offers a snapshot of a particular institutional setting at a specific point in time. As AI tools continue to develop rapidly, perceptions and patterns of use may change, and further research with larger samples is needed.

What the experts say

“There is a tendency for the debate about AI in universities to focus on the risks of cheating or the promise of transforming education, but the reality is more complex,” said Dr Mark Carrigan, Senior Lecturer in Education at Ģ����Ƶ and one of the study’s authors who has also recently on this topic. “Our findings suggest that staff and students have quite different perceptions of how AI is being used, making it difficult for universities to develop effective responses based on assumptions rather than a clear understanding of students’ experiences.”

Publication details

This research was published in: Frontiers in Education

Title: Still emerging: understanding Generative AI use in Higher Education

DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1885253

URL:

A Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Respiratory Medicine at Ģ����Ƶ, Prof is also the Programme Lead for COPD within the of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre (BRC): Manchester.

This is a significant achievement that reflects Prof Singh's international leadership in respiratory research.

COPD, a common lung condition which causes breathing difficulties, is one of the leading causes of illness and death worldwide. Ranking first globally in this field highlights the scale, quality and impact of Prof Singh’s research contribution.

Scholar GPS rankings benchmark researchers against their international peers using measures such as publication output, citation impact and overall research productivity.

Professor Dave Singh, who is also Medical Director of the , an IQVIA business, and Honorary Respiratory Consultant at Wythenshawe Hospital, part of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, said: "Reaching the top global ranking in COPD research and within the top 10 for lung research is a great honour. This achievement reflects not just my work, but the dedication of my research team and colleagues in Manchester and our shared commitment to improving the lives of patients living with respiratory diseases.

“While metrics like Scholar GPS are wonderful acknowledgments, our ultimate goal remains translating these scientific insights into meaningful clinical advancements that make a real difference to patients across the UK and worldwide."

Stephen Dickson, Chief Executive of Wythenshawe, Trafford, Withington and Altrincham Hospitals at MFT, said: “Congratulations to Professor Singh on this recognition for his excellent contribution to COPD and lung research. It demonstrates the global impact of research being undertaken at Wythenshawe Hospital, which is improving outcomes for people living with respiratory disease in Manchester and beyond.”

In 2020 Prof Singh was and in 2025 he was named one of the world’s most influential researchers by Clarivate.

Through the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre: Manchester, Prof Singh has contributed significant research on COPD and other respiratory diseases.

This includes leading a long-standing strategic partnership with Verona Pharmaceuticals (now part of ), spanning multiple early and late phase studies and directly contributing to the approval of Ohtuvayre (ensifentrine) in June 2024. This treatment reduces breathlessness in COPD patients by a novel mechanism – an innovation which brought the first new COPD treatment for breathlessness in more than 20 years.

Over the past decade, Prof Singh has authored multiple papers showing that COPD patients have different types of inflammation in the lungs, with some patients having a particular pattern called type-2 inflammation. He has worked on clinical trials to identify treatments that successfully target type-2 inflammation; this work has shown how type-2 inflammation can be identified in the blood. This means clinicians can now use a simple blood test to find out if a patient's COPD is driven by this type of inflammation and match them to the right targeted treatment.

Prof Singh led early phase trials showing the ability of a novel treatment, tozorakimab, to prevent worsening of COPD symptoms. He recently co-authored landmark late phase studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showing the benefits of this treatment across a broad population of COPD patients with different types of inflammation.

In 2025, Prof Singh also co-authored in Nature Reviews which outlined the opportunities for new COPD therapies, highlighting the Manchester COPD research team as leaders in the field.

Find out more about

Ģ����Ƶ placed fifth in the UK and 50th globally in the , published by Times Higher Education. This represents an improvement from 56th place globally in the 2026 ranking.

The ranking, designed by HR consultancy Emerging, identifies the universities that recruiters at leading companies believe are best at preparing students for the workplace. A total of 17 UK universities feature among the 300 institutions included globally.

The result follows further recognition of Manchester’s strong links with employers. Earlier this year, the University was ranked first in the UK for graduate employer interest in High Fliers' The Graduate Market in 2026, based on research with 100 of the UK’s leading graduate employers.

Professor Jenn Hallam, Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students said: “This recognition reflects the strength of our students and graduates, as well as our close relationships with employers. We want our students to leave Manchester with the knowledge, skills, experience and confidence they need to succeed in a rapidly changing world of work.”

Ģ����Ƶ is taking practical steps to support graduate employability through placements, micro-internships and closer working with business. These opportunities enable students to apply their learning, build confidence and take their first steps into employment.

In other rankings during 2026 Ģ����Ƶ was placed and . Manchester also .

Following the 2026 call for ELLIS Fellows and Scholars, the announced this month that Mingfei has been appointed as an ELLIS Scholar.

is a pan-European AI network of excellence which aims to secure lasting international leadership of AI made in Europe by connecting top researchers in this field and by creating a multi-centric AI research laboratory. The annual appointment of ELLIS scholars recognises promising researchers who show a clear trajectory towards becoming senior leaders in AI and machine learning research.

Mingfei, recently promoted to Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science, has been a key member of the ELLIS Manchester Faculty since the unit was founded, working closely with colleagues from across Ģ����Ƶ and with ELLIS sites across Europe. Mingfei has particularly strong connections with the ELLIS Institute in Finland and as well as a large number of published papers, he has been involved with organising events including the Helsinki summer school.

In a recent example of this collaboration, Mingfei has co-authored a paper on ‘Adam’: an optimization algorithm used to train deep neural networks, with international colleagues, including ELLIS Institute Finland. This paper has been accepted for the NeurIPS conference and will be presented there later this year.

We look forward to Mingfei continuing to play an important role in Manchester’s contribution to the ELLIS Society in the coming years.

Physicists have found evidence of a particle decay so rare that it is expected to occur only around once in every 10 billion ‘beauty’ particles.

The result, from the upgraded LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), follows a search spanning more than 40 years and brings physicists closer to exploring the ‘Zeptoverse’ – an unexplored world that exists at distances of a billionth of a trillionth of a metre, or a ‘zeptometre’, where new particles and forces of nature may be hiding.

Researchers from Ģ����Ƶ have played key roles in the LHCb experiment and its major upgrade - which can now collect data at up to five times its previous rate - including developing detector technology that has helped make the new measurement possible.

The finding will allow physicists to test the Standard Model, our current best theory of fundamental particles and their interactions, with greater precision and search for signs of particles or forces that may lie beyond it

Searching for signs of new physics

The LHCb studies particles containing beauty quarks, heavier relatives of the up and down quarks found in the ordinary matter around us.

Beauty quarks are produced in huge numbers in collisions at the LHC but exist for only around one and a half trillionths of a second before decaying.

By making precise measurements of the different ways beauty quarks decay, physicists can detect the influence of new particles that may be far too small to see at the LHC.

The rarer a decay is, the more sensitive it can be to the influence of new particles. These particles could alter how often the decay occurs.

The new result concerns a particularly rare decay known as ‘Bd to mu mu’, in which a particle containing a beauty quark decays into two muons, heavier relatives of electrons.

Scientists predict that this happens only around once in every 10 billion beauty particles. Until now, no single experiment had found solid evidence for the process.

The new measurement reached a statistical significance of 3.2 sigma. This is sufficient for physicists to describe the result as the first evidence of the decay, although further data will be needed to reach the five-sigma threshold required to claim a discovery in particle physics.

Professor Chris Parkes, Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ģ����Ƶ, led the international LHCb collaboration through the construction of the upgrade and led the collaboration's approval of the new result.

He said: “The upgraded LHCb was a major undertaking - a fifteen-year design and construction project from a 1900 international member collaboration.

“The UK made the largest nation contribution to the project, pioneering new technologies that have made today’s result possible where we probe nature at a new scale. But this is also just the start, we are planning the construction of an experiment that will exploit the capabilities of the next generation High Luminosity LHC, probing physics at an even smaller scale.”

Professor Parkes, who was made a Fellow of the Royal Society earlier this year for his work on LHCb added: “This decay is remarkably unlikely, the chance of it happening is roughly like going on a romantic date and, on your very first try, finding the one perfect match for you among everyone on Earth.”

A major UK-built component of the upgraded LHCb experiment is a silicon pixel detector that tracks the paths of particles created in collisions at the LHC with extreme precision.

Known as the Vertex Locator, it sits just five millimetres from the LHC beams and enables scientists to pinpoint where particles are produced and where they decay.

Dr Stefano De Capua, who led the construction of the detectors at Ģ����Ƶ added: “We worked with nearly 90 UK companies to construct this detector and trained the next generation of scientists and engineers on the novel technologies we are using. It is these detectors that we use to locate where the beauty meson was produced and pinpoint where it decayed into two muons.”

Into the ‘Zeptoverse’

The physicists hope measurements such as this could allow them to probe the ‘Zeptoverse’, referring to extraordinarily small distance scales where currently unknown particles and forces may be hiding.

While they know the new measurement agrees with the predictions of the Standard Model, increasingly precise measurements of these rare decays could help physicists search for signs of new physics and reveal where the model might eventually begin to break down.

Professor Conor Fitzpatrick of Ģ����Ƶ and Deputy Physics Coordinator of the international LHCb collaboration, said: “There has been a more than forty year long search by physicists worldwide to observe this decay. It is a golden channel to observe the effects of new physics from beyond our current knowledge.

“The results from this experiment are expanding our understanding of nature at its most fundamental level. We are excited to have finally seen this elusive signal and looking forward to the future discoveries that will come from our data.”

What happens next?

The upgraded experiment is expected to collect a much larger dataset into the early 2030s, allowing physicists to study the decay with increasing precision.

A further planned upgrade could increase the rate of data collection by another factor of ten, enabling more precise measurements of these decays and giving physicists greater sensitivity to undiscovered particles at even shorter distances.

Professor Brian Cox, Particle Physicist at Ģ����Ƶ, who was not involved in the experiment, said: “This is an important result and a beautiful example of how science advances. We upgrade our instruments and we see nature in greater detail. Occasionally we see something we don’t understand, and then progress is made. We cannot know whether this progress will be incremental or genuinely world-changing - that’s science! LHCb is a major scientific success.”

The experiment is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council as part of UK Research and Innovation. The UK LHCb collaboration includes researchers from ten UK Universities and the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Ģ����Ƶ has appointed Professor Lee Pugalis as Director of the (MEC).

MEC is the University’s home for enterprise and entrepreneurship, working with students and graduates from every discipline. Through its strategy, Manchester 2035, the University has committed to supporting entrepreneurship for all and to becoming the university of choice for starting a company or social enterprise. Lee will lead MEC in making that ambition a reality: building students’ entrepreneurial skills and employability, supporting ventures that create jobs and social impact, and turning research into innovative businesses.

“Manchester has always been a city of innovators, and the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre plays a vital role in nurturing the next generation of founders, changemakers and problem-solvers. I’m thrilled to lead the centre at such an exciting time, working with our fantastic team, students and partners to make entrepreneurship truly open to all.” Professor Lee Pugalis, Director of the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre

Lee joined MEC as Deputy Director in August 2023 and has led the centre as Interim Director since January 2026, guiding it through its transition into Unit M. He takes up the role at a time of strong momentum. The number of start-ups launched each year has more than doubled over the past three years, growing at an average of nearly 30% annually, with a record 81 new start-ups launched in 2025/26. The alumni ventures MEC has helped develop have secured more than £495 million in investment over the past five years. In 2025/26, MEC also supported over 520 early-stage entrepreneurs in the first year of its new four-pathway model, and 1,790 students enrolled across 30 course units representing all three faculties.

MEC has supported student and graduate entrepreneurs for over 25 years. Its professional services team has now moved into , the University’s gateway to innovation, working alongside academic colleagues based within the world-leading Innovation, Management and Policy division at (AMBS).

As Director, Lee will lead MEC’s team of around 30 academic and professional services colleagues, bringing together its curricular and co-curricular activity. He will deepen MEC’s partnership with AMBS, strengthen links with faculties and schools, and scale opportunities so that all 47,000 of the University’s students can take part, whatever their discipline. This includes partner-enabled learning, through which students work with employers, public bodies and community organisations as part of their course for credit.

“Lee’s appointment is excellent news for the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre and for Alliance Manchester Business School. He brings a strong track record of leadership, collaboration and a clear commitment to making entrepreneurship accessible to students from every discipline. Under his direction, MEC will strengthen its deep roots within AMBS while extending its reach and impact across the University through Unit M. I look forward to working with Lee as we equip more students and researchers with the skills, confidence and connections to turn bold ideas into ventures that deliver economic and social value.”
Professor Ken McPhail, Head of Alliance Manchester Business School

MEC is also home to the University’s flagship student entrepreneurship competitions, which offer equity-free funding and support to student and graduate founders. In 2026, 29 finalists were selected from around 200 applications to compete for 11 awards across four tracks, sharing a record £200,000 prize pot. Eligible applications were up 48% on the previous year.

MEC hosted three events at the University’s inaugural Innovation Festival this year, attracting more than 300 attendees:

· Ideas Unlocked: an interactive workshop introducing entrepreneurship and innovation to students, whatever their experience

· Partner-Enabled Learning Exchange: a session exploring how to embed industry partnerships into enterprise and entrepreneurship education

· Manchester Venture Builder Demo Day 2026: delivered with Venture Cafe Manchester, where emerging University founders pitched to investors, mentors, alumni and ecosystem leaders

Lee’s appointment comes as the University delivers A Powerhouse of Innovation, its plan to become Europe’s most inclusive and impactful innovation ecosystem by 2035. With entrepreneurship embedded across the curriculum and co-curriculum, MEC will help develop the innovation-savvy entrepreneurs and workforce of the future, creating jobs, ventures and impact for Manchester and beyond.

Find out more about MEC and how to get involved on the .

Discover more about .

This year, the award was presented to Marina Mogli and Adriana Bocu, Tutors on the 10-week and 6-week Pre-sessional course. The award allows funding for these tutors to attend an EAP conference of their choice.

The Tors Award celebrates the contribution and strength of Tors Squires, who worked as an English Language Tutor in UCAE from 2008 to 2017 before moving to Spain with her husband and children. Sadly, she was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly afterwards and passed away at the end of 2019.

Tors is remembered fondly for her warmth, positivity and the kindness she showed to everyone around her. Her belief in the importance of "little acts of kindness" left a lasting impression on colleagues and students alike.

Created in her memory, the Tors Award celebrates these qualities by recognising Pre-sessional tutors who demonstrate exceptional kindness, generosity and support for colleagues during the busy and often demanding Pre-sessional period.

The award gives colleagues from across UCAE an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the contribution of members of the Pre-sessional teaching team. Nominations are reviewed by a small representative panel, chaired by Rob Marks, Senior Co-ordinator of Pre-sessional Courses, who together select the recipient.

Birds may not always take the flight path that physics suggests is the perfect landing, at the safest and lowest possible speed, using the least energy, according to new research.

Most birds flap their wings as they come in to land, despite powered flight requiring more energy than gliding. Now, researchers at Ģ����Ƶ have used mathematical modelling to help explain why.

The study, published in , found that a bird flying without flapping its wings could, in theory, reach zero speed just as it touches down. However, the manoeuvre would require much higher approach speeds and considerably more space than birds typically use when landing.

For a pigeon-sized bird, the model showed that reaching zero speed would require it to begin at more than twice its typical cruising speed, travel around 60 metres horizontally and climb around 20 metres.

The findings suggest that achieving the lowest possible touchdown speed may not always be practical. Birds may use flapping not simply to slow down, but to do so within the limited space available in a real landing environment.

The research also provides new insight into why some birds swoop when landing on a perch, and how the physical demands of landing may have helped shape bird evolution.

Lead author , Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering at Ģ����Ƶ, said: “Birds might make landing look effortless but coming to a safe stop presents a fundamental physical challenge. Landing isn’t as simple as just slowing down. The slower a bird flies, the less aerodynamic control it has, so it has to find a way of reducing its speed while still being able to manoeuvre safely. How birds do this and manage these competing demands is still not well understood.

“We used mathematical modelling to calculate how a bird flying without flapping could minimise its speed at touchdown while maintaining the control needed to complete the manoeuvre.

“In doing so, we’ve been able to gain insights into the swooping approaches seen in some perching birds, such as birds of prey, and more broadly, understand how physical demands of landing may have helped shape their evolution.”

Why some birds swoop

The modelling also provides new insight into the swooping behaviours observed in some birds when landing on perches.

Previous research on Harris hawks found that the birds learned to swoop down below their target landing spot before gliding upwards towards a perch. It was proposed that the manoeuvre helped them minimise the distance they travelled after their wings stalled, when aerodynamic control is reduced.

The new modelling suggests that there is more to this behaviour. The landing trajectories appear to reflect a balance between reaching the perch at a low speed and limiting the time spent stalled. The researchers say touchdown speed appears to have a greater influence on the swooping behaviour than previously documented.

Could landing have shaped bird evolution?

Landing on the ground creates a different challenge. Unlike swooping and perching, the bird coming to the ground cannot continue its trajectory below the landing surface or climb upwards through its destination.

The modelling showed that a bird landing on the ground without flapping cannot eliminate all of its speed before its feet touch down. It must therefore use its wings, legs, or a combination of both to deal with the remaining energy.

This places physical demands on the bird's body, requiring more substantial muscles and bones to cope, particularly in the legs. But additional mass can reduce flight performance.

The researchers suggest this trade-off between being light enough for efficient flight and robust enough to land safely could have helped shape the evolution of birds.

The researchers say the same physical principles could also help explain how other flying animals manage unpowered landings.

Geography Today, a new termly publication for schools from the Royal Geographical Society, features curriculum-relevant case studies for A level written by expert geographers, alongside stories highlighting the role of geography in understanding contemporary issues and events.

Its academic editors are Professor Noel Castree, Professor Fiona Smyth and Professor Jamie Woodward from Ģ����Ƶ’s Department of Geography, alongside Professor Martin Evans, who is now at Durham. All four are Fellows of the Society and former heads of Department in Manchester. The editors are shaping a publication aimed at connecting geographical research and expertise with the subjects and global challenges young people are exploring at school.

The launch comes as the RGS refreshes its membership offer for young people, aimed at widening access to geography education, resources and careers support.

RGS School Members receive digital access to Geography Today, with new editions published each term, alongside access to other resources and events. The Society has also made Student Membership free for students from KS4 through to undergraduate level, providing access to study and exam support, networking opportunities, careers resources and events.

The first edition of Geography Today is available now through the Royal Geographical Society's .

Evaluation is embedded into many museum, gallery, and heritage workflows, often as a funding requirement or a way to monitor visitor experience. But when time and resources are stretched, it can too-often become a report relegated to the end of a project, functioning as a retrospective reflection rather than an ongoing tool for learning.

Our research asked whether filmmaking could offer another way: making evaluation more participatory and better equipped to capture the changes and relationships that are central to community-led projects.

Storyboarding the idea

The spark came in 2019, when we began working with Platt Hall during a period of major transformation. The former Gallery of Costume was being reimagined through the project to become a hyper-local community space that was not simply made for audiences, but developed with them.

At first, film was a way to document that transformation. Over time, however, the act of filming on site, conducting interviews, returning to the site, reviewing footage, and discussing choices created repeated moments of reflection. It helped people notice what was changing, both in the building and in their own relationship to the project.

This created a shift from filming a project, to exploring filmmaking as part of the project itself. The question became: what happens when people are not just subjects of evaluation, but active participants within it?

Why film

Filmmaking is a useful research method as it is, by nature, an inherently socially engaged and collaborative practice. Processes of storyboarding, directing, appearing on screen, speaking on camera and choosing what to cut or leave in all ask people to pause and reflect at each stage as the work unfolds.

This space for reflection was particularly important because Platt Hall’s redevelopment is rooted in centring local perspectives. The slow, intentional co-production process gave room for relationships to build, which could accentuate the emotional and social values of the project in ways that might exceed the written word.

From volunteer to director

Here we focus on our films with Platt’s Garden Project, launched in 2021, which transformed Platt Hall’s grounds from disused exterior space into a beautiful, community-led garden. Working collaboratively, gardening volunteers learned narrative techniques, directing and camera work, and how to shape a story through editing.

The resulting three films each offer a different perspective on the project and the people behind it:

• A Tale of Healing, Inspiration & Biscuit Diversity in the Platt Hall Garden Project by Mary Collins explores her journey of growth through volunteering and how the garden helped her reconnect with others during personal struggles.
• Compost by Rashid Mhar follows the lifecycle of compost, from decomposition to renewal, as a parallel to the transformation taking place at Platt Hall.
• The Pleasure of the Work by Helen Steyne documents the before and after of the garden, and the community of volunteers who helped shape it.

Together, our work showcases why people take part in community-led projects, and how participation changes over time.

Doing research differently

Piloting these creative research methods ensures that evaluation doesn’t sit outside the project but becomes embedded; whilst the films are the outputs, the filmmaking process is where the learning can happen.

By working collaboratively, the pathway from research to real-world change is not linear, but cumulative. The research methods shaped the creative process; the creative process strengthened community participation; and those participant-led insights are now informing how heritage organisations think about evaluation, their spaces, and the cultural experiences of their audiences, as well as paving the way for these methods to be used in other contexts.

The impact

As the museum and heritage sector increasingly shifts to placing people at the heart of its work, co-production projects such as ours can demonstrate a more meaningful and effective approach to routine processes such as evaluation.

A city is made up of spaces such as Platt Hall. By capturing reflections, a sense of place, and shifts in relationships as they happen, we can understand how and why people participate in cultural and community spaces, as well as offer insights into how we can build cities that better serve the people who inhabit them.

Final-year medical student Megan Mcgillin was providing medical cover at the event two weeks ago when a 35-year-old runner suddenly fell to the ground after crossing the finish line.

Recognising the signs of cardiac arrest within seconds, Megan immediately raised the alarm and began life-saving chest compressions while calling for additional help.

As the wider medical team arrived, she continued working calmly under pressure, helping to apply defibrillator pads before handing over to colleagues leading the resuscitation effort.

The runner had suffered a cardiac arrest and required extensive emergency treatment before his heart could be restarted.

He was rushed to A&E and later transferred to intensive care, where he has since made a strong recovery.

In a heartwarming twist, the grateful runner has now met Megan in person to thank her for the role she played in saving his life.

For Megan, who is in the final year of her medical training, the dramatic rescue was an unforgettable reminder of why she chose a career in medicine.

The life-saving incident is not the first time she has found herself in the spotlight.

In 2023, Megan led a campaign to raise awareness of organ donation during changes to Northern Ireland's organ donation laws and was recognised with an Inspirational Young Woman of the Year award.

Speaking about what happened, Megan said: "When the runner collapsed, my training immediately kicked in and I focused on doing the basics as quickly and effectively as possible.

“It was a real team effort involving a number of healthcare professionals working together under pressure.

“I'm incredibly grateful that the outcome has been so positive and that he's recovering well.

“Meeting him afterwards was very emotional and a powerful reminder of why we dedicate ourselves to learning these skills and helping others."

Professor Margaret Kingston, Director of Undergraduate Medical & Dental Studies from The�� University of Manchester Medical School said: "Megan responded with remarkable professionalism, composure and skill in an extremely challenging situation, and everyone involved is delighted to hear that the runner is making a good recovery.

“The dramatic rescue highlights how the skills learned by future doctors can make the difference between life and death when every second counts.”

has launched a new ten-year Strategy setting out the next phase of growth and development for Manchester’s Knowledge Quarter.��

Covering one square mile south of Manchester city centre, the Oxford Road Corridor is one of the UK’s most significant concentrations of research and innovation. It supports more than 104,000 jobs and generates £7.8 billion in annual economic output��

The Oxford Road Corridor Strategy 2026–2036 builds on decades of collaboration between the major institutions that shape this part of Manchester. Over almost two decades of formal partnership, more than £2.8 billion of public and private investment has been aligned across the area. During that period, more than 60,000 jobs have been created and annual economic output has increased by £4.6 billion.����

Alongside major physical change, the Corridor has continued to evolve as a vibrant and distinctive part of the city, with a diverse cultural offer central to its identity.��

The Strategy focuses on how the Corridor can make more of its exceptional concentration of research, talent and economic activity. It sets out how partners will support businesses and attract investment, while continuing to improve the quality and connectivity of the area.��

Future growth will build on established strengths in health and life sciences, digital and technology, advanced materials and the creative industries.��

Major development is already taking shape across the Corridor, from Sister at its northern end to the continued expansion of Citylabs and Manchester Science Park in the south. The Strategy also looks ahead to the transformation of Manchester Piccadilly and Oxford Road stations, alongside better connections with surrounding communities.

An independent assessment underpinning the Strategy estimates that the development pipeline could support around 15,800 additional jobs and generate £1.9 billion in GVA per annum, alongside an estimated 2,200 construction jobs per year.

The Strategy was launched at the Royal Northern College of Music at an event hosted by journalist and author Andy Spinoza, bringing together partners and stakeholders from across Manchester and Greater Manchester.

Professor Duncan Ivison, Chair of the Oxford Road Corridor Board and President and Vice-Chancellor of Ģ����Ƶ, said: “We have an extraordinary concentration of research and talent within the Oxford Road Corridor, but its real strength comes from the relationships between the institutions and organisations based here.

“The partnership has been built over decades and has helped transform this part of Manchester. This Strategy is about what comes next. We want to strengthen the Corridor’s international position and create the conditions for businesses and ideas to grow, while ensuring more people benefit from that success.

“The opportunity over the next decade is significant, and we will achieve far more by continuing to work together than any institution could achieve alone.”

Councillor Garry Bridges, Leader of Manchester City Council, said: “The Oxford Road Corridor has made an enormous contribution to Manchester’s growth, and the new Strategy gives us a clear direction for the next decade.

“We want Manchester to continue creating highly skilled, well-paid jobs in sectors where we can compete internationally. Increasingly, people can build careers here that a generation ago might have meant leaving Manchester to pursue elsewhere.

“The challenge now is to build on that success and attract further investment. Just as importantly, people and communities across the city need to be able to access the opportunities being created.”

Professor Linda Merrick CBE, Principal of the Royal Northern College of Music, said: “The Oxford Road Corridor brings together an exceptional concentration of institutions and talent within one part of the city. What makes it particularly distinctive is the opportunity to work across institutional boundaries and connect world-class education and research with Manchester’s wider ambitions.

“The new Strategy gives us a shared direction for the next decade, and the RNCM is proud to be part of a partnership with such a strong international outlook and commitment to the future of this place.”

Esme Ward, Director of Manchester Museum, said: “Culture is fundamental to the identity of the Oxford Road Corridor. It is part of why people come here, how they experience the area and how the Corridor connects with Manchester’s communities and the wider world.

“The new Strategy recognises the value of that cultural ecology and the role it can play over the next decade, not only in making this a vibrant and distinctive place but in supporting creative talent and the wider economy.”

Chris Oglesby OBE, Chief Executive Officer, Bruntwood, said: “The Oxford Road Corridor is the UK exemplar of what can be achieved through long-term partnership between the private sector, universities, the NHS and the City Council, delivering wider benefits for Manchester.

“Bruntwood has had a relationship with the Corridor spanning more than 20 years and we’ve seen first-hand how sustained investment and collaboration have helped transform the area. The next decade is about building on that momentum, creating the conditions for innovative businesses to start and scale here, and helping Manchester continue to compete internationally.”

The Strategy’s vision is to drive the growth of an internationally renowned, inclusive and sustainable place where knowledge, business and culture transform lives. It will provide the shared framework for the partnership’s activity and investment through to 2036.

Losing someone you love is devastating, but alongside the grief, bereaved families face a daunting list of practical tasks - from paying funeral bills and dealing with banks to completing paperwork, contacting organisations and navigating unfamiliar systems.

With the average funeral costing around £4,000, the financial pressure can add to an already difficult time. And money is only part of the burden: dealing with a death can also demand huge amounts of time, energy and emotional strength.

Now, researchers at Ģ����Ƶ are inviting people to shine a light on these often-overlooked challenges at a free event exploring what happens after someone dies.

The Hidden Costs of Dying��takes place at HOME on��Tuesday 3 November, as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science. Led by sociologists Sophie Atherton and Kate Reed, the free event will explore the hidden work of bereavement and why some people face greater challenges than others.

The researchers describe this work as “death administration” - the many practical and administrative tasks that follow a death, often falling to family members and loved ones at a time when they are grieving.

While the cost of a funeral is relatively easy to see, the wider impact can be harder to measure. The time spent sorting out paperwork, the stress of managing financial affairs and the effort required to navigate unfamiliar processes can all take their toll.

At the Manchester event, participants will take part in a creative activity designed to explore these different costs and open up conversations about experiences that are rarely discussed. There is no expectation for anyone to share personal experiences of bereavement.

A representative from the National Bereavement Service will also be available to provide information and signpost people towards further support.

The researchers hope the event will help make the realities of dealing with a death more visible, highlight inequalities in the experiences of bereaved people, and contribute to thinking about how support could be made fairer and more accessible.

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This bold new project, made possible thanks with support from Getty through its New Interpretations initiative, aims to create a new model for co-creation that looks at what happens when interpretation is used not simply to explain the past but to help people imagine better futures.��

Three Imagination Fellowships will catalyse collaboration between communities, practitioners, researchers and Museum staff to co-design new interpretive interventions for the Archaeology gallery. This work will help to create displays that are shaped by diverse perspectives and founded on the Museum’s core values of inclusion, imagination and care.��

Esme Ward, Director of Manchester Museum, said: “This is an incredible opportunity to embed values-based practice throughout our archaeological interpretation, working with communities to develop new knowledge and build a future founded on inclusion, imagination and care. Making the most of our position at the heart of Ģ����Ƶ, new Imagination Fellowships will enable us to move forward faster together and create new models for collaborative display focused on building belonging, hope and agency in a rapidly-changing world."��

Through this project, Manchester Museum intends to create sector-leading models for interpretation and display that help to shape wider museum practice, nationally and internationally, rethinking how collections of deep history can support civic participation and social connection in more impactful ways.��

Manchester Museum cares for around 60,000 objects across archaeology, spanning over 50,000 years of human history and material culture and these collections are Designated by Arts Council England for their international significance.

They include everything from the largest collection of excavated Roman-era assemblages from in and around Manchester to extensive strengths in prehistoric material from Europe, West Asia, South Asia and Africa, and exceptionally rare Classical Greek ceramics that challenge long-held understandings of famous mythological narratives.��

Manchester Museum is one of 11 museums and arts organisatons to be awarded in this pilot round of New Interpretations grants and the only one in Europe. Other grantees include Walker Art Center, Queens Museum, Leeum Museum of Art, in partnership with M+, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Fowler Museum at UCLA, First Americans Museum, Denver Art Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the Association for Art Museum Interpretation.��

ENDS

The humanitarian sector is at risk of losing a significant part of its institutional memory. Humanitarian archives, records, and datasets (ARD), ranging from registration records and case files to operational data and evaluations, are being neglected, deleted, or left without adequate stewardship.

Produced by the����(HAE) coalition, Key Aid Consulting and the Institute of Development Studies, a new report assesses the scale and nature of the threat, identifies collections most at risk, and proposes a practical framework for action.

The report draws on a global evidence base that includes a desk review, a public registry survey, a diagnostic survey of 30 collections, 27 expert interviews, and regional consultations in Amman, Dakar, Bogotá, Bangkok, and Nairobi.��

The HAE coalition is led by the University’s Humanitarian & Conflict Response Institute (HCRI) and the PI is Prof Bertrand Taithe.

For more on the project, visit:

For more on research at HCRI, visit:

Homework set by primary schools could be reinforcing educational inequalities by rewarding families who have more time and resources to spend helping their children, new research from the University of Manchester suggests.

The study argues that homework is not simply an educational activity carried out by children at home. It also requires parents to invest their time, knowledge and resources, potentially giving some children an advantage over others. Researchers found that parents can face very different demands on their time, particularly when they are balancing homework with work, childcare and other family responsibilities.

Yet schools may treat parents' ability and willingness to spend time on homework as a measure of how well they are supporting their children's education. The researchers argue that this can create a ‘deficit’ view of parents, in which families who have less time or fewer resources are perceived as less engaged with their children's education.

When homework becomes a parental responsibility

Homework is often presented as a way for children to practise what they have learned at school. But the researchers argue that it also creates expectations about how parents should use their time, examining the process through which homework is set by a teacher, completed by a child with parental involvement, and then returned to the teacher.

This creates an opportunity for parents to invest time in producing work that can subsequently be recognised and rewarded within the education system. The researchers use the sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu to argue that this investment can become a form of cultural capital - the time and knowledge available to families can be converted into educational advantage.

Not all parents have the same amount of time

The study highlights the very different circumstances in which parents are expected to support homework. One parent, referred to as Emma in the paper, describes trying to help her children despite working until 8pm. She says that doing homework late at night can be extremely difficult and argues that homework should be regarded as a ‘bonus’ if parents are able to do it, rather than something automatically expected of every family.

Emma also describes the experience as potentially ‘shaming’ for parents who do not understand the homework themselves. The researchers argue that this illustrates how apparently neutral expectations about parental engagement can have very different consequences depending on families' circumstances.

A parent with flexible working hours, financial resources and confidence with schoolwork may be able to provide substantial support, while a parent working long or irregular hours may have much less time available, even if they are equally committed to their child's education.

Are parents being judged on how they spend their time?

A central argument of the paper is that schools can develop implicit ideas about the ‘proper’ use of parents' time. The researchers describe these expectations as part of the educational field's ‘doxa’ – beliefs that become so taken for granted that they appear natural or unquestionable.

This can mean that spending time on educational activities is treated as evidence of being a good or committed parent, while parents who cannot or do not engage in the expected ways may be judged as lacking commitment. The researchers argue that this can obscure the structural reasons why parents have different amounts of time available.

The ‘colonisation’ of family life

The paper builds on previous research describing homework as a ‘colonisation of the home by school’. The researchers argue that homework does not simply extend learning beyond the classroom; it can also give schools an influence over how families are expected to spend their time together.

This is illustrated by the views of one teacher, Mrs Higgins, who describes homework as an opportunity for parents and children to spend time together. She also argues that parents have a responsibility to prioritise their children's education and suggests that schools sometimes have to compensate when parents are not sufficiently involved.

The researchers argue that this illustrates a tension between two very different understandings of homework. For teachers, it can be seen as an opportunity to support learning and strengthen parent-child relationships, while for some parents it can represent an additional demand on already limited time and a judgement about whether they are using that time ‘properly’.

A hidden advantage for families with more resources

The study also highlights an apparent contradiction in how parental involvement can operate. Families with greater financial resources may be able to overcome a lack of time by outsourcing educational work, for example through private tutoring. This means that having limited time does not necessarily prevent more affluent parents from ensuring their children receive substantial educational support.

Families with fewer financial resources may instead have to choose between spending their own limited time on homework and other demands such as paid work, childcare and household responsibilities. The researchers argue that inequality is therefore not simply about how much parents care about their children's education, but also about who has the resources to turn that commitment into educational advantage.

Why simply removing homework may not be enough

The researchers argue that eliminating homework would be desirable as a school-directed parental engagement practice, but caution that this would not automatically remove inequalities. Other forms of parental engagement could emerge to take its place and continue to reward families with greater resources.

Instead, the authors argue that schools need to examine the assumptions underlying parental engagement and develop practices that recognise the different circumstances in which families live. They call for schools, teachers and researchers to better understand families' experiences and to develop approaches that legitimise non-dominant experiences, rather than treating them as evidence of parental failure.

Making the invisible visible

The research uses a detailed case involving a parent, a teacher and the first author, who was herself a parent at the school. The authors argue that this unusual perspective allowed them to examine how different people could experience the same homework practice in very different ways.

The first author describes a moment when she realised that homework was being used not only to develop children's academic skills but also as a way of encouraging a particular form of parental behaviour. The researchers describe this as a moment in which something that had previously appeared natural became visible as a social practice shaped by power and class.

They argue that recognising these hidden assumptions is an important step towards challenging educational inequalities.

What the experts say

“We need to be careful about assuming that a parent who spends more time helping with homework is necessarily more committed to their child’s education,” said Dr Emilia Howker. “Some parents simply have more time and resources available to them. When schools reward that investment, we risk turning differences in family circumstances into differences in children’s educational opportunities.”

Publication details

The paper was published in: British Journal of Sociology of Education

Title: Time for homework: doxic expectations on parents’ use of time in the home-school relationship

DOI:

URL:

The sheds new light on why blood pressure rises so dramatically in the condition and could point towards entirely new ways of treating it.

Preeclampsia affects between 2% and 8% of pregnancies worldwide and is linked to serious complications including stroke, organ damage, premature birth and stillbirth.

At present there is no cure other than delivering the baby and placenta, often forcing doctors to bring pregnancies early to protect the mother.

But now the researchers have identified a key failure in the way small arteries regulate blood flow in women with the condition.

The team recruited patients at Saint Mary’s Hospital (SMH), part of MFT, and compared tiny arteries from pregnant women with and without preeclampsia. The researchers discovered that a vital natural relaxation mechanism was severely disrupted in those with the disease.

The vessels were taken from the omentum — a fold of fatty tissue inside the abdomen that helps protect and support the abdominal organs — and placed under pressure in a laboratory to study their functioning.

Healthy blood vessels rely on microscopic bursts of calcium, known as "calcium sparks", to tell the muscle in artery walls to relax and prevent excessive constriction.

But in women with preeclampsia these calcium sparks were dramatically reduced, with levels falling by as much as 75% at normal physiological pressures.

Investigating the samples at , small artery research labs at UoM, led by Professor Adam Greenstein, Clinical Scientist and Consultant Geriatrician at MFT, researchers also found evidence that the cells' calcium stores were depleted and less able to refill themselves, preventing the vessels from generating the signals needed to relax properly.

This loss of an important pressure-balancing mechanism could help explain why blood vessels remain abnormally constricted in preeclampsia, driving dangerous increases in blood pressure.

The team also tested HBD2, a naturally occurring immune-system molecule that helps the body fight infection."

Although the molecule – known as a peptide - did not restore the faulty calcium sparks, it was still able to relax blood vessels by activating a different part of the same pathway.

The finding raises the possibility of future treatments that bypass the damaged mechanism altogether and directly encourage blood vessels to relax.

Researchers say such approaches could eventually help control maternal blood pressure, prolong pregnancy and reduce the need for early delivery.

Study lead author from Ģ����Ƶ, who is an Honorary Consultant in Obstetrics at the Maternal and Fetal Health Research Centre at SMH, part of MFT said: "Preeclampsia remains one of the most serious complications of pregnancy and the only definitive cure is delivery of the baby and placenta.

“Our study reveals, for the first time, a major defect in the way tiny maternal blood vessels regulate their own relaxation.

Dr Worton, who is also a researcher in the Integrative Cardiovascular Medicine Theme at the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre: Manchester, continued: “We found that a critical calcium signalling pathway is profoundly impaired, but also showed that blood vessels can still be relaxed through alternative mechanisms.

“These discoveries provide promising new targets for therapies aimed at controlling blood pressure and improving outcomes for mothers and babies.

“Further studies are now needed to explore whether drugs targeting these newly identified pathways could safely be developed for use during pregnancy.”

The research was made possible by collaboration between the Maternal and Fetal Health Research Centre, the cardiovascular sciences research group and the MAViS (Manchester Antenatal Vascular Service) clinic, which provides specialist care for more than 300 women per year, whose pregnancies are complicated by preterm pre-eclampsia.

from Ģ����Ƶ, a study author and Consultant Obstetrician at the Maternal and Fetal Health Research Centre at SMH, said: “This research demonstrates the power of collaborative research across MFT and Ģ����Ƶ. This research, and access to human samples from women with a rare disease, is only made possible by the contribution of our research practitioners, research and specialist midwives working alongside our scientists within the university, to advance our understanding and improve care.”

• The study was funded by the Tommy’s Maternal and Fetal Health Research Centre, Alzheimer’s Society, the British Heart Foundation and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre (BRC): Manchester.

• Maternal Microvascular Calcium Sparks Are Reduced in Preeclampsia is published in the journal

The two organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) focused on collaboration to create new opportunities for young people and to tackle issues around biodiversity and nature.

Manchester Museum will draw on Science Gallery Bengaluru’s work with students, specifically through its Mentorship Initiative, to build innovative programmes for young people, focused on learning, mentorship and the development of creative pathways.

In its commitment to the Anthropocene, Science Gallery Bengaluru’s Nature Lab, as part of the pioneering Public Lab Complex, will collaborate with the Manchester Museum’s world-class conservation initiatives to serve as a two-way bridge between biodiversity and nature-related research and public engagement.

Esme Ward, Director of Manchester Museum, said: “Bengaluru is a city driven by creativity and innovation, where there’s a tangible sense of care for the natural world and a commitment to creating opportunities for future generations.

“The people and ideas I experienced on a previous visit there have helped to shape the work we do at Manchester Museum and there’s a strong sense of shared purpose between our two organisations. Science Gallery Bengaluru does an incredible job of inspiring young people and we’re excited to build on that in creating an even brighter future for communities here in Manchester.”

Dr Jahnavi Phalkey, Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru, said: “At Science Gallery Bengaluru, we value research-based engagement and new ways of bringing science to the public. Our Nature Lab, part of the pioneering Public Lab Complex, is one way we continue to explore our commitment to the Anthropocene.

“Visiting Manchester Museum and seeing how it puts community spaces into practice offers a valuable point of connection between our institutions. We are delighted to collaborate with Manchester Museum and explore how our two institutions can learn from each other.”

The MoU was signed during an event at Science Gallery Bengaluru, organised as part of the Greater Manchester Mission to India and attended by Professor Duncan Ivison, President and Vice-Chancellor of Ģ����Ƶ, and Bev Craig OBE, Mayor of Greater Manchester.

This partnership builds on work Manchester Museum has done through its award-winning South Asia Gallery, a British Museum partnership, which is the first permanent gallery in the UK to celebrate the experiences and contribution of the South Asian diaspora. The Museum has also previously partnered with the Indian Music Experience Museum in Bangalore on the RhythmXChange project, which looked at rhythm as a shared language, working with young musicians from India and the UK.

During the mission, Ģ����Ƶ announced plans for a new centre, focusing on education, research and innovation, in Bengaluru. The proposed centre will provide a permanent platform for the University to deepen its engagement with one of the world’s most dynamic education, research and innovation ecosystems. It will help to bring together academic expertise, industry knowledge and entrepreneurial talent to address shared challenges and create opportunities for students and researchers in India.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Hub will support postgraduate researchers (PGRs) who have received AHRC Doctoral Landscape Awards (DLAs) as part of a new approach to doctoral funding and training across the UK.��

Launched with the 2026/7 academic year, the Hub will support 46 postgraduate researchers across 10 Higher Education institutions, connecting researchers at Manchester with peers and expertise from across the region.��

Alongside Ģ����Ƶ, the Hub brings together Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Liverpool, Lancaster University, the University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, Durham University, Newcastle University, the University of Leeds and the University of York.��

The Northern Hub is one of seven regional hubs being supported by AHRC. The hubs are designed to provide cohort-based training and development, enable collaboration and networking between institutions, and connect doctoral researchers with non-academic partners.����

The Hub's work got underway with its official launch on Thursday 15 October, bringing postgraduate researchers together at the University of Manchester for a day of learning, creativity and connection. The programme combined cohort training with a PhDoodle arts and crafts workshop and an EDI Fellows Showcase.��

The Hub will complement the support already available within individual universities by giving researchers access to a wider programme of activities spanning institutions and disciplines.��

Opportunities will include specialist skills workshops, conferences, writing residencies, knowledge exchange retreats and student network events. Training will also explore key themes and AHRC priorities, including equality, diversity and inclusion, artificial intelligence and climate change, alongside career development covering academic and non-academic pathways and publishing.��

While its core programme is centred on PGRs funded through the Doctoral Landscape Awards, many opportunities will also be opened to legacy AHRC DTPs, including the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP), Northern Bridge Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NBCDTP), and White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH), as well asself-funded postgraduate researchers in the Arts and Humanities across the ten partner institutions.��

The Hub forms part of AHRC’s evolving approach to doctoral training. From 2026, AHRC will use a funding formula for its Doctoral Landscape Awards, covering 50 UK Higher Education institutions and 15 studentships at each institution, three per year over five years. ��

To find out more, please visit the or contact the team.��

That question sits at the heart of Just Recovery. Drawing on experiences from the COVID-19 pandemic and the realities faced by migrant workers in Nepal, reflects on his research and asks a simple but powerful question: what would recovery look like if it were designed around the needs, rights and experiences of the people most affected?��

The spark

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed deep inequalities in how societies respond to crises. Nepali migrant workers found themselves particularly vulnerable. Many lost jobs overnight, faced wage theft, risk of deportation, and were placed in unsafe quarantine facilities. While migrant workers are often celebrated back home for the money they send through remittances, the pandemic revealed how quickly they could become overlooked or excluded by governments when crisis struck.����

For our research, this was not just another policy problem, but a human one.��

Humanities methods are uniquely placed to explore these kinds of issues. Rather than beginning with statistics or infrastructure, the project began by listening to those living through the crisis. Through interviews, collaborative workshops and ongoing partnerships with activists and community organisations, we built a detailed picture of what recovery looked like from the perspective of migrant workers themselves and civil society activists defending their rights.��

Developing the Just Recovery framework��

The research revealed that recovery is not simply about returning to normal. In fact, for those affected by disaster, it means departing from the normal. Together, our team and Accountability Lab in Nepal developed the idea of Just Recovery: an evidence-informed approach that places human rights and lived experience at the centre of disaster governance.��

The framework argues that recovery should be built around three interconnected ideas:����

1. Care: recognising the importance of support networks and wellbeing.��
2. Collaboration: highlighting the need for governments, communities and civil society organisations to work together.��
3. Confrontation: challenging unfair systems and demanding accountability where rights have been ignored or violated.��

This is where the value of humanities research becomes clear. The project did not simply identify problems, but it helped develop a new way of thinking about recovery that could be applied in practice.��

What changed?��

One of the most significant outcomes of the research was the strengthening of civil society advocacy. Accountability Lab and its partners have used the research to identify evidence-based ways to improve citizen participation and accountability during disaster response and recovery. The findings have helped provide a stronger foundation for future campaigns and advocacy efforts led by young activists and community organisations.��

The project also helped build connections between researchers, activists, practitioners and policymakers. Through public hearings, workshops and collaborative knowledge-sharing, communities were able to raise concerns directly with decision makers and contribute to conversations about recovery. These activities created opportunities for local knowledge to influence wider discussions about disaster governance. The longitudinal work in Kavre, a peri-urban community in the outskirts of Kathmandu valley, also shows the value of a place-based research, developing deeper and more engaged relationships with local communities and officials. Perhaps most importantly, our research demonstrated that those affected by disasters are not simply recipients of aid. They are rights-bearing citizens and experts in their own experiences and can play an active role in shaping solutions.��

This work shows that impact is not only about policy change. It is about shifting conversations, strengthening advocacy and ensuring that people most affected by crises have a voice in recovery. By developing the Just Recovery framework, the project has helped shape how organisations, activists and policymakers think about building fairer and more accountable responses to disasters.��

Looking back��

The project set out to understand citizen participation and accountability during disaster recovery. It achieved that aim, but it also generated a practical framework that continues to be applied beyond the pandemic.��

What began as research into COVID-19 and migration has evolved into work on flooding, climate justice and disaster risk reduction. The Just Recovery framework is now being explored in relation to the recovery of community-based and vital infrastructures following the 2024 floods in Nepal. It is also being explored in response to the climate change facing South Asia and is informing conversations beyond Nepal through Accountability Lab's international network.��

One thing I hope we continue to take away from the research is that these experiences need more deeper reflection on ethics of engagement in difficult contexts than we can simply observe in an academic publication. This demands a deeper sense of responsibility and respect for those affected by or reeling from disasters. After all, how can recovery even begin to help if it's not shaped by those it’s affecting? Just Recovery demonstrates that lasting impact is not only about rebuilding after a crisis. It is about ensuring that the people most affected have a voice in deciding what comes next.��

This reflection is part of Ideas at Work, a series exploring the people and places shaped by humanities research at Ģ����Ƶ.��

The ministers visited the Renold Innovation Hub on Friday, 23 October, where they were welcomed by Professor Duncan Ivison, President and Vice-Chancellor of Ģ����Ƶ and Professor Aline Miller, Associate Vice-President (Enterprise), and SISTER Director of Place, Liz Bamber.

They heard how the University is working with business and civic partners to turn new ideas into commercial opportunities and help companies establish themselves, innovate and grow.

During a tour of the , the ministers visited SISTER's co-working spaces and met businesses based within the innovation district, including Technologies, , and .

NeuWave Technologies is a University of Manchester spin-out using artificial intelligence and ocean science to provide predictive information for offshore operations. LanthaGen Bio is a Manchester-based tech-bio company using engineered binders to recover rare-earth and other critical metals from waste and MolMart is a Manchester genomics company offering preconception genetic screening to prospective parents, while Brain Feed Therapeutics is a research-driven brand that formulates and sells natural brain health and cognitive supplements.

The ministers then visited the nearby Pariser Building where they met the founders of . The company develops a graphene-based additive for concrete that can improve its performance while reducing the amount of cement needed, helping to cut its carbon footprint.

The technology was developed at the University’s with Nationwide Engineering, an innovation-led construction company co-founded by a Manchester graduate. The partnership helped take Concretene from the lab to a commercial product in just 18 months.

Partnership for growth

Sister is a joint venture between Ģ����Ƶ and Bruntwood SciTech, bringing together research, entrepreneurial talent and business expertise to support innovation and economic growth.

Professor Duncan Ivison, President and Vice-Chancellor of Ģ����Ƶ, said: “Universities have a really important role to play in driving economic growth, not just through our research and the talent we develop, but by helping turn great ideas into new businesses, products and jobs.

“Sister is a fantastic example of how we’re doing that in Manchester. It was great to show the Secretary of State and Small Business Minister what innovation looks like in practice and what can be achieved when universities, businesses and civic partners work together.”

Liz Bamber, Director of Place at Sister, added: “Welcoming the Business Secretary and Small Business Minister to the Renold Innovation Hub highlights the sheer strength and ambition of Manchester’s innovation ecosystem. Sister is designed to give pioneering companies - from AI spin-outs to breakthrough bio-techs - the physical space, supportive community, and connection to world-class research they need to thrive.

“We’re proud to be creating a vibrant home where great ideas quickly translate into real-world impact and sustainable economic growth for the region.”

The visit came ahead of an SME conference in Manchester and in the run-up to the government's forthcoming budget, which is expected to include support for small businesses.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said:��"Small businesses and innovation go hand in hand in this country, with so many great entrepreneurs creating and��embracing new technology that sets them apart from the competition.��That’s why we’re helping unlock their potential through removing £800 million worth of everyday paperwork and bureaucracy.

��"Sister is a��key driver of this change in Manchester and it was excellent to meet businesses like��LanthaGen Bio, MolMart and��Concretene��on Friday to discuss how they are turning new ideas into jobs and growth for the city."��

Mosquito-borne diseases such as chikungunya, Zika and dengue are becoming increasingly epidemic in Eastern Africa, raising concerns about their potential to cause future outbreaks, both within the region and further afield.

Now, researchers at Ģ����Ƶ will lead an investigation into what is driving that change and how this knowledge could help countries better predict, prevent and control future epidemics.

Understanding the causes of changing disease risk

The £3.4m ‘TACKLING MBU: Tackling the Rise of Mosquito-Borne Viral Epidemics in Eastern Africa’ project will see Manchester assemble researchers from the UK, Tanzania, Kenya and Malawi, combining expertise ranging from mosquito ecology and virology to public health, social science, genetics, mapping and mathematical modelling.

Mosquitoes and the viruses they carry do not exist in isolation.

Enabling better intervention

The first phase of the project will gather mosquito, virus, environmental and human data from 50 sites across Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi. Mosquitoes will also be collected from other African countries, including Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, working with partner institutions there, to track the spread of mosquito genes linked to a preference for feeding on people.

Alongside analysing mosquitoes and viruses, the team will work with local communities to understand people's daily routines, travel, interactions with their environment and knowledge of mosquito-borne diseases.

The team plans to produce national-scale disease-risk maps for Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi, alongside more detailed maps identifying potential “hotspots” where viruses circulating in wildlife could spill over into people.

The aim is ultimately practical: giving public-health bodies better evidence to enable them to better target their surveillance and intervention efforts. The work will be carried out in partnership with the Ministries of Health in Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi, with whom the team will co-produce policy briefs on evidence-based, targeted surveillance and control of these diseases.

Interdisciplinary research into disease prevention

will lead the project, alongside Manchester co-leads , , Tucker Gilman and , and three early career researchers including Cianjoka Gichuyia and Ben Broomfield.

International co-leads include Joseph Kamau at the , Dylo Pemba and Gama Bandawe at , and Gerald Misinzo at in Tanzania.

The project, starting this November, is one of 18 new research and innovation projects funded by the UK Government and UKRI to tackle biosecurity threats.

In a study published in , researchers from Ģ����Ƶ and Lancaster University have isolated and characterised uranocenium, the positively charged form of a landmark uranium compound called uranocene. The work shows that this long-sought molecule is stable, and that it behaves in a way that challenges how chemists usually think about bonding in heavy elements.

Uranocene is a ‘sandwich’ molecule: a single uranium atom held between two flat rings, each made of eight carbon atoms. It is the uranium counterpart of ferrocene, an iron sandwich molecule whose discovery contributed to the 1973 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Ferrocene readily gives up an electron to form the ferrocenium cation, a switch so clean and reliable that it is used as a reference standard in laboratories worldwide. Until now, no one had been able to isolate the equivalent uranium compound.

Solving a decades-old puzzle

When chemists first tried to remove an electron from uranocene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the molecule appeared to fall apart, giving poorly defined products. The Manchester team found that the problem lay not with uranocene itself, but with a fluorine-containing salt routinely used in those experiments to help solutions conduct electricity better, an electrolyte. The uranocenium cation strips fluorine from this salt and decomposes in the process.

By choosing a different chemical to remove the electron and a less reactive solvent, the team isolated uranocenium as crystals stable at room temperature. The breakthrough began partly by chance: the reaction was designed for a different purpose, but uranocenium was produced instead.

The team, including Cameron Deakin, Iulia Turcas, Benjamin Réant, Liam Griffin,, Adam Brookfield, , and from Manchester, and Dr Andrew Kerridge from Lancaster University, then studied the compounds in detail. They used single-crystal X-ray diffraction, which maps the positions of atoms in a crystal, alongside magnetic and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements, which probe the unpaired electrons inside a molecule, and computer modelling. Together, these confirmed that the uranium has given up one more electron than in uranocene, raising its ‘oxidation state’ from +4 to +5.

Electrochemical experiments, which measure how easily a molecule gains or loses electrons, showed that uranocene and uranocenium switch back and forth as cleanly as ferrocene and ferrocenium do. This signalled to the researchers that the molecular structure barely changes when the electron is added or removed.

Often, when a metal atom loses an electron, it pulls surrounding atoms closer because its greater positive charge attracts them more strongly. Bonds in uranium compounds are usually held together mainly by this kind of electrostatic attraction, so the team expected the uranium–carbon distances to shrink noticeably. Instead, X-ray measurements showed they shortened by only around 0.02 Å (two trillionths of a metre), several times less than expected from the change in uranium-ion size alone.

Computational calculations explained why. When uranium loses an electron, it and the carbon atoms it binds to share electrons much more than in the unoxidised form, a type of bonding known as covalent bonding. The uranium share of the key bonding electrons rises from around 30% to over 40%, whereas normally these carbon atoms would hold onto their electrons much more tightly. This builds up electron density between the uranium and carbon atoms, and because electrons repel one another, the crowding resists any further squeezing together. The two effects balance, leaving the molecule almost unchanged in size, both in crystals and in solution.

Contributing to fundamental chemistry

The findings matter most for fundamental chemistry. Uranocene was one of the first molecules to show that uranium’s outermost electrons, in so-called f-orbitals, take part in chemical bonding, and it remains a benchmark for understanding how heavy elements bond. With uranocenium, researchers now have a matching set of uranium sandwich molecules in three oxidation states (+3, +4 and +5), allowing them to track changes in bonding while the structure stays almost the same.

The work also provides a rare example where electron sharing, rather than simple electrostatic attraction, controls the shape of a uranium molecule. Next, the team plans to explore the reactivity of uranocenium and to test whether heavier elements, such as neptunium, can form similar compounds.

The new Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre of Research Excellence (CoRE) for Human Neural Development will integrate world-leading expertise with cutting-edge research to fill in major gaps in the fundamental understanding of brain growth and development.

Led by King’s College London, in partnership with University College London (UCL) and the University of Manchester, the key aim is to understand the critical mechanisms underpinning early brain development, from the womb to early childhood, and how their disruption can inform effective treatments.

Until recently, there were very few ways to study the development of the human brain in a meaningful way. Now, using the latest technological developments, including the ability to image the developing brain before and after birth, grow models of brain tissue in the laboratory, and harness the power of artificial intelligence, the centre will provide unprecedented insights into the development of the human cerebral cortex, the region of our brain that enables language, planning and creativity. Using these insights from the laboratory, the centre aims to develop markers of healthy brain development, which can be measured in babies and children to help develop and evaluate treatments in clinic.

Centre lead Professor Oscar Marín, based at King’s College London, said: “The human brain is a bit of a black box.

“We can measure patterns of brain activity from the outside, and we can even potentially connect them to what happens later in life, but we don't yet know how these signals actually relate to what's happening inside the child’s brain.

“This means we cannot tell which signals reflect something important about how the circuits inside the brain are developing. Until we can make that distinction, we cannot reliably predict which children are at risk or intervene early enough to make a difference.

“We have now reached a point where the technologies exist to close that gap, and we can turn that understanding into real differences for children and families.

“The one thing that makes King’s a very special place to tackle this problem is that there are very few places in the world that has this universe of discovery scientists and clinical scientists and facilities that will allow us to bring this program together.”

The centre will use organoid technologies to build human models of brain tissue in the newly established Brain Organoids Laboratory at King’s, which was funded through an initial donation of £1.5m from the Wolfson Foundation in 2024.

This pioneering technology allows researchers Professor Marin and Dr Laura Pellegrini to model how parts of the human brain develop and to tailor their genetic makeup to understand the specific genes involved in neurodevelopmental disorders.

“We have the tools to essentially generate a primordial mini functional tissue that resembles a part of the cerebral cortex. This would help us to understand what goes wrong with, for example, with the cellular architecture in certain diseases,” commented Dr Pellegrini, Wellcome Trust CDA Fellow at King’s, on the doors opened by organoid technologies.

Professor Tomoki Arichi, Professor of Perinatal Neuroscience at King’s, and honorary consultant at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, will form part of a clinical team collaborating closely with clinical lead Professor Shruti Garg from the University of Manchester to help translate findings from the laboratory into new treatments and improvements in clinical care for children.

Professor Centre translational lead and Deputy director, based at Ģ����Ƶ, said: "Working within NHS clinical networks in Manchester, we'll turn discoveries about brain development into tools clinicians can use making a real difference for children and families here and across the country."

Dr Ilias Tachtsidis, Centre Innovation Lead and Deputy Director, based in UCL’s Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, will lead on engineering aspects of the project. He added: "To deliver this ambitious vision of the centre, we need first-of-their-kind technologies that can safely and non-invasively image brain biology across scales—from blood vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients to brain cells, down to the mitochondria that power them. This is a major engineering challenge we will tackle at UCL."

Professor Emily Jones, Professor of Developmental Translational Neuroscience at King’s, will follow how newly identified markers of healthy brain development translate to developmental outcomes beyond infancy at the new Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People.

When genetic mutations and environmental factors affect brain development in infants, the consequences are felt throughout their life.

These outcomes are disproportionately felt by minorities and families from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Dr Ceri Williams, Executive Director of Challenge Led Themes at MRC, said: “We are delighted to announce this new MRC CoRE for Human Neural Development, backed by £50 million of public investment.

“By untangling the mysteries of human brain development in the very early stages, this centre offers a powerful opportunity to transform lives, giving us the tools to make earlier and fairer interventions for a future where every child has the best possible chance to realise their full potential.”

AI-based protein design is already transforming protein science, but RFD4-Proteina differs in how it tackles the design problem. The model can consider several interconnected aspects of structure and function simultaneously, refining a protein’s amino-acid sequence and three-dimensional structure alongside the molecules with which it interacts. It can also direct more computational effort towards promising designs, helping researchers identify candidates with specific functions more efficiently.

Researchers at Ģ����Ƶ's (MIB), including , Dr Henry Jones and Dr Zefei Xu worked in collaboration with IPD to apply RFD4-Proteina to design de novo enzymes for low cost and sustainable production of global health drugs.

One of the team's most significant tests focused on the synthesis of lenacapavir, a breakthrough drug used for HIV prevention. RFD4-Proteina was used to design entirely new enzymes capable of catalysing a key amide-bond-forming reaction involved in the drug's synthesis. Of the 67 designs selected for experimental testing, four showed clear activity, with the best converting 79% of a bulky chiral amine into the desired amide product. The enzyme also displays high selectivity for the S-enantiomer of the amine as required for the Lenacapavir synthesis. This reaction is particularly challenging because the enzyme must favour the desired amide bond-forming process while suppressing a competing reaction with water which is present in a vast excess in enzyme mediated transformations.

This research represents a critical proof-of-concept demonstration that new enzymes can be designed computationally to promote challenging steps in the synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients.��
��

Proteins for health, the environment and industry

Proteins are essential for life and perform a wide range of functions, for example, enzymes speed up chemical reactions involved in metabolism, while antibodies bind to pathogens to help fight infection. Proteins are also important in manufacturing chemicals and materials used in everyday products, including medicines and fuels. But designing new functional proteins such as enzymes is difficult.

Enzymes found in nature have traditionally provided the starting point for scientists seeking to engineer biocatalysts with useful functions. More recently, computational protein design has made it possible to design completely new proteins. However, this remains difficult as scientists must find a combination of amino-acid sequence, three-dimensional structure and molecular interactions capable of performing the intended task from an enormous number of possibilities.

Developed by Professor David Baker and his team at the University of Washington’s Institute for Protein Design (IPD), RFD4-Proteina was designed to address this problem. It combines two existing AI models – the IPD’s RosettaFold Diffusion line and Proteina-Complexa from NVIDIA – allowing scientists to design brand new proteins with a specified function, focusing laboratory testing on a handful of the most promising candidates.

“RFD4-Proteina will open the door to new solutions in medicine, sustainability, materials and biotechnology,” said David Baker, IPD director and professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Baker is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and a recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

In silico – the virtual world of protein design

RFD4-Proteina’s biomolecular reasoning is novel; it learns the “language” of existing proteins by training on a large dataset, and tests in silico a huge number of design possibilities to fit a desired function.

Like language models with adjustable “thinking”, RFD4-Proteina can devote more computation to difficult problems. It concurrently refines a protein’s sequence and structure alongside the structures of interacting molecules, so that a change in one seamlessly informs changes in the others.

Across computational benchmarks, RFD4-Proteina achieves design success rates five to 10 times higher than previous models while generating protein candidates five to 10 times faster. Lab bench tests validated that the model’s protein outputs act as anticipated in an experimental setting. This testing demonstrated success across biomolecular tasks of varying sizes, complexities and functions. Importantly, the model is open source under a BSD-3 licence, allowing researchers to use it in their own protein-design work and build upon it.

This model offers a way to design proteins faster and more accurately to perform specific jobs, potentially accelerating early-stage development of new medicines, antibodies, diagnostic molecules, enzymes and industrial biotechnology processes.

A student from Ģ����Ƶ is preparing to climb Africa’s highest mountain to raise money for young people with cancer, drawing on his own family’s experiences of the disease.

Next August, 30 year old Joseph Mooney from Whitefield will take on the challenge of trekking up the 5895 metre Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise funds for Teenage Cancer Trust, a charity supporting young people facing cancer.

For Joseph, the challenge is deeply personal - he lost his grandfather to pancreatic cancer in 2022, his mother and sister have both survived ovarian cancer, and his uncle is currently receiving treatment for lung cancer at Manchester Royal Infirmary and The Christie.

Joseph is planning a series of training hikes over the next nine months, including revisiting the UK’s Three Peaks - Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon - ahead of the expedition. He climbed Ben Nevis in 2024 and first hiked Snowdon as a teenager. He also plans to hike the Rock of Gibraltar when visiting his mother, who lives there.

Earlier this year, Joseph completed a multi-day trek through Morocco’s Atlas Mountains - but he says Kilimanjaro will be the biggest and toughest challenge he has faced.

His passion for hiking is also closely connected to his own wellbeing. Joseph says spending time in nature, hiking alone and getting outdoors help him manage his mental health and provide a welcome sense of perspective.

“Cancer has affected my family in so many ways, and it is a cause that is very close to my heart,” he said. “Having lost my grandad and seen my mum and sister come through cancer, with my uncle currently undergoing treatment, I know how much the disease can affect not just the person diagnosed but their whole family. I wanted to do something positive with those experiences and take on a challenge that could make a difference to other people going through something similar.

“Hiking is also something that means a lot to me personally. Getting out into nature and pushing myself on a trail can do wonders for my wellbeing. Kilimanjaro will be the biggest and hardest trek I’ve ever done, but knowing I’m doing it to support young people with cancer will make it all worthwhile.”

Teenage Cancer Trust provides specialist nursing care and support for teenagers and young adults with cancer, including through specialist hospital units and services across the UK. Joseph hopes to use his training hikes to raise awareness of the charity as well as funds, wearing a Teenage Cancer Trust T-shirt on the trails and talking to fellow hikers about its work.

He is appealing to the University of Manchester community and the wider public to support his fundraising effort. Donations of any size will help him work towards his fundraising target and support the charity’s work with young people affected by cancer.

Support Joseph’s fundraising

To donate to Joseph’s Kilimanjaro challenge, visit his JustGiving page:

Joseph will be posting about his training and his climb on Instagram:

International pressure intended to encourage democratic reform can sometimes strengthen the very governments it seeks to hold to account, according to new research from Ģ����Ƶ.

The study examined Zimbabwe's decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth in December 2003, finding that the move was driven less by a rejection of international institutions in principle than by the ruling party's determination to remain in power.

Why Zimbabwe left the Commonwealth

Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth in 2002 amid concerns about its presidential election and democratic standards. When the suspension continued following a Commonwealth meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, in December 2003, President Robert Mugabe's government announced its withdrawal.

But the research, by Dr Arthur Shirichena of Ģ����Ƶ and Pofela Ndzozi of Lupane State University in Zimbabwe, argues that withdrawal was a strategic political choice.

The authors examined documentary evidence, including Commonwealth and Zimbabwean government records, parliamentary material and contemporary reporting, to understand the decisions behind the country's departure.

They argue that meeting the conditions for reinstatement – including improvements to elections, media freedom, judicial independence and political violence – risked weakening ZANU-PF's control.

The government continued to pursue a return to the Commonwealth while that appeared possible on terms it could accept. Once the Abuja outcome made that prospect less realistic, leaving became a way to protect its domestic position rather than accept reforms that might undermine it.

Turning criticism into a defence of sovereignty

The study finds that the government also used international criticism to reinforce its political narrative at home.

By presenting the dispute as an attack on Zimbabwe's sovereignty and its anti-colonial liberation struggle, ZANU-PF could portray external pressure as foreign interference. The government could also cast domestic opponents who called for reform as aligned with outside interests.

This helped the ruling party mobilise political support and shift responsibility for Zimbabwe's international isolation onto its critics.

The authors argue that this strategy served the interests of the ruling coalition, even if withdrawal reduced Zimbabwe's diplomatic access and standing. The government's political survival, rather than the country's wider national interest, was the central consideration.

Lessons for international pressure today

The research highlights a challenge for governments and international organisations seeking to encourage democratic change: diplomatic isolation does not automatically lead to reform.

Where leaders see international demands as a threat to their hold on power, they may reject those demands, challenge the legitimacy of their critics or use the dispute to rally domestic support.

The authors caution that the Zimbabwe case does not provide a universal explanation for how governments respond to international pressure, but say it shows why the likely domestic political consequences of diplomatic action need to be considered alongside its intended goals.

Publication details

The research was published in
The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.

Title:
Zimbabwe’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth: a foreign policy analysis through the logics of consequences and appropriateness

DOI:


URL:

Nicola will join the University Executive and lead our finance function, bringing a wealth of experience, strategic insight and a deep understanding of the higher education sector as we continue to deliver From Manchester for the world and ensure the University’s long-term financial sustainability.��

Nicola joins us from the University of Liverpool, where she is currently Chief Financial Officer with responsibility for finance, procurement, strategic planning and strategic change, as well as serving as Executive Lead for Sustainability. During her career, she has led major finance transformation programmes, strengthened institutional financial planning and performance and helped shape investment, partnership and sustainability strategies to support long-term success. ��

With more than 25 years’ leadership experience, including over two decades in higher education, Nicola has built a reputation for combining strong financial stewardship with collaborative leadership and informed decision making. She brings a proven ability to navigate complexity in large organisations and respond proactively to challenging external environments.

This appointment also marks a welcome return to Manchester. Between 2005 and 2017, Nicola held a number of senior finance roles at the University, including Deputy Director of Finance, Head of Faculty Finance for Medical and Human Sciences, Head of Management Accounts and Financial Controller. She therefore joins us not only with extensive experience in the sector, but also with an understanding of our people and our values. Earlier in her career, she worked in professional practice with Baker Tilly, EY and Grant Thornton.

Nicola is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and holds a BSc in Mathematics from Newcastle University and an MSc in Applied Mathematics and Fluid Mechanics from Ģ����Ƶ.

Please join us in giving Nicola a very warm welcome back to Manchester. We look forward to working with her and wish her every success in the role.

Professor Duncan Ivison, President and Vice-Chancellor, said: “Nicola brings a wealth of experience, sector insight and a strong track record of financial leadership and the opportunities and challenges facing the sector today. Having previously had a number of senior roles at Manchester, she also knows the University well and shares our commitment to the ambitions we’ve set out in our strategy. I am delighted to welcome Nicola back to the University and look forward to working with her.”

Nicola Davies said: “I am delighted to be returning to Ģ����Ƶ as Chief Financial Officer. Having both worked and studied here, Manchester is an institution I know well and care about deeply. I am looking forward to working with colleagues across the University to build on its strong foundations, support its strategic ambitions and ensure that our financial planning and investment continue to deliver real impact for our students, staff, city and wider communities.”

Nicola will take up the role on Monday 8 February 2027.

Ģ����Ƶ has been selected to establish a new ELIAS Node, becoming only the second UK institution to join the European AI innovation network, alongside Cambridge.

The Manchester Node is one of eight newly selected nodes announced at the ELIAS Frontier AI Innovation Summit in Stuttgart, Germany, on 8 October 2026. The expansion brings the ELIAS Alliance to 16 nodes across nine European countries, strengthening collaboration in frontier artificial intelligence research, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Led by Professor Sophia Ananiadou, Professor of Computer Science and Deputy Director of the Christabel Pankhurst Institute, the Manchester ELIAS Node will be hosted at the Christabel Pankhurst Institute for Health Technology Research and Innovation at Ģ����Ƶ.

The ELIAS Alliance (European Leadership in Innovation with AI and Science), initiated by the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS), brings together leading AI researchers, universities, innovation centres and industry partners to strengthen Europe's leadership in AI research and its translation into technological, economic and societal impact.

Advancing frontier AI research and innovation

The Manchester ELIAS Node will connect the University's internationally recognised strengths in artificial intelligence with interdisciplinary research, entrepreneurship and industrial innovation.

Its research activities will focus on three complementary areas:

• Trustworthy AI for digital twins, in-silico trials and regulatory-grade evidence, bringing together multimodal learning, causal AI, simulation and computational medicine to support reliable scientific and healthcare applications.
• Open foundation models, agentic AI and trustworthy AI, advancing language technologies, domain-specialised foundation models, multilingual AI, intelligent agents and methods for evaluating the reliability and safety of AI systems.
• AI foundations for scientific discovery and complex systems, including probabilistic machine learning, optimisation, uncertainty quantification, scientific machine learning and human-centred AI.

The Node builds on Manchester's established research environment, including the National Centre for Text Mining (NaCTeM), ELLIS Manchester, the Centre for AI Fundamentals, the University's doctoral training programmes and the Christabel Pankhurst Institute. It will support new opportunities for collaborative research, doctoral education, researcher mobility, open-source AI development and knowledge exchange across Europe.

Manchester ELIAS Node leadership and research team

The Manchester ELIAS Node is led by Professor Sophia Ananiadou, who serves as its Lead and Spokesperson within the European ELIAS Alliance. Her research spans natural language processing, large language models, trustworthy and agentic AI, and biomedical and scientific language technologies. The Node brings together leading researchers from Ģ����Ƶ and European academic partners.

ELLIS Fellows associated with the Manchester Node:

• Professor Sophia Ananiadou – Ģ����Ƶ; Manchester ELIAS Node Lead and Spokesperson.
• Professor Magnus Rattray – Ģ����Ƶ; ELLIS Manchester Lead, Machine Learning and AI.
• Professor Alejandro Frangi – Ģ����Ƶ; Computational Medicine and AI.
• Professor Samuel Kaski – Ģ����Ƶ and ELLIS Institute Finland; Machine Learning and AI.

Manchester Node Members:

• Dr Mauricio Alvarez – Machine Learning and AI Fundamentals.
• Professor Julia Handl – Optimisation, Machine Learning and Decision Sciences.
• Dr Mingfei Sun – Machine Learning, Reinforcement Learning and Open-Source AI.
• Dr Tingting Mu – Theoretical Machine Learning and AI Fundamentals.
• Dr Claudia Lindner – Translational Medical Imaging and AI for Health.
• Professor Matthew Sperrin – Biostatistics, Health Data Science and Causal Inference.

Together, the team brings complementary expertise across AI foundations, trustworthy machine learning, language technologies, biomedical AI, optimisation and scientific discovery, supporting the Node's research, innovation and training activities.

Connecting Manchester to Europe's AI research community

As the second ELIAS Node in the UK, Manchester will strengthen the country's contribution to European AI research and innovation. Working closely with the Cambridge ELIAS Node, Manchester will help establish a stronger north–south connection within the UK, while developing new collaborations with European partners, including the ELLIS Institute Finland, ELLIS Unit Franconia and ELLIS Unit Barcelona. These partnerships will support joint research initiatives, researcher exchanges, doctoral training, innovation activities and participation in the wider ELIAS network. The Node will also contribute to the ELIAS Alliance Innovation PhD initiative, connecting doctoral researchers with opportunities in AI research, entrepreneurship, industrial collaboration and international mobility.

Building on Greater Manchester's industry and innovation ecosystem

A distinctive strength of the Manchester ELIAS Node is its integration with the region's growing AI, life sciences and innovation ecosystem.

The Node is supported by a network of academic, industry and innovation organisations, including:

• Unit M – Supporting science entrepreneurship, venture creation and innovation.
• University of Manchester Innovation Factory – Supporting technology transfer, intellectual property and commercialisation.
• Turing Innovation Catalyst – Connecting AI research with industry, startups and regional economic growth.
• Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Catalyst (IBIC) – Supporting innovation, industrial collaboration and translation.
• Bionow – Connecting the Node with the regional life sciences and biotechnology industry.
• Cambridge–Manchester Innovation Partnership – Strengthening collaboration, entrepreneurship and innovation across the two cities.

The Node will also draw on established industry relationships and wider international partnerships to create pathways from frontier AI research to real-world applications. These collaborations will help researchers and students engage with entrepreneurs, industry experts and investors, supporting the development of innovative AI technologies and new ventures.

A new chapter for Manchester's European AI collaboration

Professor Sophia Ananiadou, Lead of the Manchester ELIAS Node, said:“We are delighted that Ģ����Ƶ has been selected to join the ELIAS Alliance as its second UK Node. This is an important recognition of Manchester's research excellence in artificial intelligence and the strength of our interdisciplinary research community. The Manchester Node brings together outstanding expertise in AI foundations, trustworthy and agentic AI, language technologies and AI for scientific discovery. We look forward to developing new opportunities for research collaboration, doctoral training and innovation through the ELIAS Alliance.

Professor Ian Hall, Director at Ģ����Ƶ, said: "I am excited at the potential for the Manchester ELIAS Node and look forward to hosting it in the Christabel Pankhurst Institute. Trust and openness in AI solutions for health research are critical for public and clinical acceptability, and we look forward to leading work on these and other key foundations with partners in the European Leadership in Innovation with AI and Science"

The establishment of the Manchester ELIAS Node reinforces Ģ����Ƶ's commitment to internationally leading AI research, interdisciplinary collaboration and responsible innovation. Hosted by the Christabel Pankhurst Institute, the Node will provide a new platform for connecting research excellence with European collaboration, entrepreneurship and societal benefit.

Further information:

Scientists at Ģ����Ƶ have led a major UK effort to build half of the 137 giant neutrino sensors being built in the UK for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), marking an important step towards the experiment’s search for answers.

DUNE is a major international science project which, once complete, will send a beam of neutrinos 1,300 kilometres across the US, in a mission to explain why the Universe is made of matter rather than antimatter.

Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the Universe and may hold clues to this mystery, but they rarely interact with matter, making them extremely difficult to detect.

DUNE will study the behaviour of these particles and their antimatter counterparts, antineutrinos to explain why matter dominates over antimatter in the Universe. The study will also look for neutrinos from exploding stars, known as supernovae.

A UK-wide production effort

The giant neutrino sensors, known as Anode Plane Assemblies (APAs), will detect the tiny electrical signals produced when neutrinos interact with liquid argon inside DUNE's enormous underground detector.

Each APA is 6.3 metres tall and 2.3 metres wide - roughly the height of a two-storey building. The sensors are being manufactured at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) Daresbury Laboratory.

by a team of 25 technicians and engineers led by The Univeristy of Manchester’s, Professor Justin Evans, at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) Daresbury Laboratory by a team of 25 technicians and engineers, as part of a UK project whose Principal Investigator is Professor Justin Evans of Ģ����Ƶ.

Together, the thousands of wires on the APAs will provide scientists with information used to reconstruct the position and movement of particles produced in neutrino interactions.

Professor Justin Evans, University of Manchester, PI of the DUNE-UK APA project, said: “This is a major step towards realising DUNE. We are building a detector with the potential to answer some of the deepest questions in particle physics: why our Universe is dominated by matter, how neutrinos fit into our understanding of fundamental physics, and what we can learn from neutrinos produced by a supernova.

“DUNE will be one of the world’s leading neutrino experiments, and it is enormously exciting to see the detector that will enable this science now taking shape.”

Flagship instrumentation

DUNE is one of the most ambitious particle-physics experiments ever constructed. It will send a beam of neutrinos from Fermilab in Illinois to the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, 1,300 kilometres away.

University of Manchester researchers are playing leading roles across the DUNE project, from developing the computing systems needed to process up to 30 petabytes of data a year from the detector, to testing the APAs at CERN and planning their installation nearly a mile underground in South Dakota.

Extraordinary engineering

The APAs are the primary readout elements of one of DUNE's four kilotonne Far Detector modules, making them one of the UK's flagship instrumentation contributions to the experiment.

The UK is responsible for producing 137 of the 150 APAs required for the experiment.

Each carries approximately 24 kilometres of hair-thin copper-beryllium wire, held in place by thousands of precision connections across its enormous frame.

When a neutrino interacts inside the liquid argon, it produces charged particles that leave behind electrical signals in the detector.

The APA wires detect those signals, allowing scientists to reconstruct what happened and study the neutrino’s properties.

The completed APAs will ultimately be installed nearly a mile underground at Sanford Underground Research Facility, where DUNE's detector will contain tens of thousands of tonnes of liquid argon.

To date, eight completed APAs have arrived at Fermilab for final testing, ahead of their installation at the underground detector in South Dakota.

Collaboration in action

Ian Lazarus, Head of Technology at STFC's Daresbury Laboratory, said: "Reaching the halfway point on APA production is a fantastic milestone for everyone involved. These are exceptionally large and technically demanding detector components, and getting to this stage reflects the skill, care and teamwork that has gone into every part of the programme.

"From the engineers building the APAs at Daresbury Laboratory, to the university teams supplying components, carrying out testing and providing scientific expertise, this has been a genuinely UK-wide effort.

"It's exciting to see this work taking shape as part of DUNE, and to know that these detector panels will ultimately help scientists investigate some of the biggest questions about our Universe."

Looking ahead to discovery

Professor Dave Newbold, formerly executive director of National Laboratories at STFC and senior responsible officer for DUNE UK and now co-spokesperson of the DUNE collaboration said: “The APA team have accomplished a huge milestone by reaching the halfway point in their production. The unique and complex components that are now making their way from the UK to the USA are a central component of the DUNE neutrino detector, and vital to address the ambitious scientific goals of the experiment. It’s great to know that profound questions about the universe are soon going to be answered through the efforts of workers across the UK, in industry, laboratories, and universities.”

With half of the UK's 137 APAs now complete, work continues towards delivering all remaining assemblies to the experiment. The remaining APAs are due to be completed in April/May 2029 and delivered for installation in South Dakota between January and November 2029.

The graphic novella No Fixed Address, written by Sotiria Kyriakidou and Cristina Temenos from the Department of Geography, has been featured on a Greek national news programme, bringing University of Manchester research on homelessness and urban crisis to a wider public audience.

The novella follows the stories of two men navigating the everyday realities of life in homeless shelters. Based on findings from the Urban Crisis research project, it explores how housing insecurity, public health, austerity and social change shape people’s experiences of homelessness, including the working conditions of staff in shelter spaces. By using the accessible format of a graphic novella, the project translates academic research into a form that can reach readers beyond the university, including policymakers, practitioners, students, and members of the public.

Its coverage on Greek national television highlights both the public relevance of the research and the importance of creative methods for communicating urgent social issues.

The relative North–South gap in this age group has therefore more than tripled over four decades. These comparisons take account of differences in age and sex between the populations.

In the 1980s, northern women in their late twenties and thirties had no excess mortality compared with the South; today every five-year band of women aged 25–49 shows a 35–60% excess, and the gap for women has grown 3.5-fold overall, from around 12% to 41%.

In this study, “northern excess mortality” means how much higher death rates are in the North than in the South of England in the same year.

The study, led by researchers from the University of Liverpool, the University of Manchester and Health Equity North, analysed national death registrations and population estimates from 1981 to 2024. It examined how the divide varied by age and sex, and whether trends changed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mortality rates fell overall during the four decades studied, although improvements were interrupted by the pandemic. The North–South gap persisted, and the widening among adults aged 25–49 began well before COVID-19.

During 2010–19, the relative North–South mortality gap among 25–49-year-olds widened for both women and men, with a faster increase among women.

There was no evidence of a narrowing of the gap during 2020–24 in any of the age or sex groups studied. Across all people under 75, death rates were 26% higher in the North than in the South in 2024, after adjustment for age and sex.

The study examined deaths from all causes combined, rather than the specific causes of the divide. The researchers plan further analyses to investigate which causes of death are contributing to the differences.

The authors describe the persistence of the North–South health divide and its widening among working-age adults and women in early to mid-life as “major challenges for government”.

They call for sustained, coordinated action by central government and strategic regional authorities to tackle the social and economic drivers of excess mortality in the North. This includes:

• Giving regional strategic authorities sufficient powers to address the social and economic determinants of health.
• Targeting funding at areas of high deprivation to narrow health gaps.

Professor Iain Buchan, W.H. Duncan Professor of Public Health Systems and Associate Pro Vice Chancellor for Innovation at the University of Liverpool, Director of Civic Health Innovation Labs (CHIL), and Executive Director of Science and Technology at Liverpool Health Partners, said: “These findings are deeply concerning for England’s health, social fabric and economy. The more than tripling of the relative North–South mortality gap between 1981 and 2024 among 25–49-year-olds is the tip of the iceberg of rising regional inequalities in the health of working-age adults, which risk compounding economic divides and reinforcing a vicious circle of disadvantage in the North compared with the South of England.

“Policymakers need to consider radical steps to improve health, work and opportunity in the North of England, not only for public health but for the whole UK economy.”

Professor in Data Science and Health Services Research, University of Manchester, said: “By bringing previous analyses of the North–South mortality divide up to date, the study paints a picture of persistent regional inequalities and exposes a concerning trajectory for the North.

“It also provides robust evidence for the need for sustained policy action in the North that extends beyond healthcare and tackles the wider factors that shape health outcomes, such as deprivation, multimorbidity, poor housing and adverse employment conditions.”

Professor Benjamin Barr, Professor in Applied Public Health Research at the University of Liverpool, said: “Tackling the increasing health gap between the North and the South should be a top priority for government. Our research shows that the problem is getting worse, with northern excess mortality rising steeply among 25-49-year-olds, who make up a significant proportion of the working age population. There is both a moral imperative to tackle these regional disparities and a strong economic case for doing so.”

Co-Director of the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester, Academic Co-Director at Health Equity North, and Senior Lecturer in Health Economics at the University of Manchester, said: “Our study reveals a deepening of the North–South mortality gap, with worrying long-term trends among northern working-age adults and women in early to mid-life, which is particularly concerning given their role in shaping the health and life chances of the next generation.

“These are trends that government cannot ignore. They need to invest in health, specifically in areas that have poorer health outcomes, to build a healthier, more resilient society and a stronger economy.”

Hannah Davies, Chief Executive of the Northern Health Science Alliance and Executive Director of Health Equity North (HEN), said: “This paper adds to the evidence on health inequalities in the North. HEN’s separate research has also examined the economic consequences of poor health and the circumstances in which people leave work.

“Targeted action is needed in the hardest-hit communities, informed by robust research and combining prevention and healthcare with action on the wider social and economic determinants of health.”

• ‘The north–south divide in English mortality, 1981–2024: a longitudinal population study’, published in The Lancet Public Health, can be accessed here:

An , published today, estimates that a fully funded UK Centre of Excellence for In-Silico Regulatory Science and Innovation (UK CEiRSI) could generate 37,282 additional quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) within its first five years. A QALY is a measure that combines length and quality of life, representing a year lived in perfect health. The report values that health gain at around £2.4 billion, applying the Treasury's £70,000 valuation of a QALY and discounting future benefits.

Headquartered at Ģ����Ƶ, UK CEiRSI's mission is to accelerate the use of in silico methods, which use computer modelling and simulations alongside, or in place of, laboratory experiments or tests involving animals or people, as a key evidence base for developing and regulating medicines and medical devices. UK CEiRSI is supported by the Office of Life Sciences, Innovate UK, the Medical Research Council, and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

The analysis also estimates potential savings within the next five years of £1.2 billion for the NHS and £325 million globally for industry through research and development efficiencies and additional revenue. It projects a £21.9 billion contribution to the UK economy through investment, employment, and productivity gains. The authors caution that some of these quantified health and productivity benefits may overlap.

The report suggests that in silico methods could also reduce reliance on animal testing and improve access to treatments for groups often under-represented in clinical trials, including children and pregnant women.

UK CEiRSI’s work is referenced in the Government’s Replacing Animals in Science Strategy and aligns with their Life Sciences Sector Plan, AI for Science Strategy, and the 10-Year Health Plan for England.

To estimate the impact, researchers modelled how UK CEiRSI could enable 14 additional uses of medicines and medical devices by 2030, comprising two medicines and 12 devices. Over 15 years, that figure could rise to 77 new uses. The resulting health gains were valued at £14 billion. Separately, the report links £12.5 billion of new research and development investment to the creation of 267,000 jobs by 2040.

The analysis drew on published evidence and a survey of 46 experts from the medical device, pharmaceutical, and supporting sectors, with the headline figures based on OHE’s medium impact scenario.

Professor , Executive Director of at Ģ����Ƶ, said: “In silico technologies let us test ideas, treatments and devices using sophisticated computer models before, or alongside, conventional studies. UK CEiRSI is unlocking the potential of these methods and this report shows how the country stands to gain. More years of healthy life is a tantalising prospect and one that is now within our grasp. The economic benefits that we can offer will create and protect British jobs. We are helping to reduce animal testing in research by advancing the use of human-relevant evidence. We look forward to delivering this transformational agenda alongside the government, medical regulators, and businesses."

Professor Sarah Sharples, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Ģ����Ƶ, said: “Computer modelling is an extremely beneficial component of delivering safe and effective technology. The report sets out an opportunity that the UK is well placed to take. The rules by which computer-based evidence is accepted in medicine and medical device regulation are being written now, and the countries that help write those rules will shape how these products are developed well beyond their own borders.

”UK CEiRSI, headquartered here and drawing on partners across the UK and beyond, demonstrates how a Manchester strategic approach brings this approach to life. It takes modelling, computing at scale, and validation to a standard that holds up under scrutiny — and people who can do all three. Manchester has this.”

Professor Ashley Blom, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health at Ģ����Ƶ, said: “Every medicine and device that reaches a patient has been tested on somebody, and for decades that somebody has rarely been a child, rarely someone who is pregnant, and rarely someone from the communities our trials reach least well. Simulation changes who can be represented in the evidence, which makes this a matter of safety and of fairness at once. The report highlights these benefits and the potential for improved patient safety and enhanced product efficacy more generally."

A simple daily blood test could help critically ill sepsis patients come off antibiotics sooner, potentially reducing drug overuse and helping tackle the growing threat of antibiotic resistance, new research shows.

The study, led by researchers at University of Manchester and Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, and mainly funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), involved 2,760 patients in 41 intensive care units across the UK and is published in the journal

They found monitoring levels of a blood marker called procalcitonin (PCT) prompted doctors to consider stopping antibiotics significantly earlier than another commonly used marker, C-reactive protein (CRP).

The ADAPT-Sepsis trial examines how doctors respond to automated advice generated from daily blood tests designed to guide decisions on when antibiotic treatment could safely end.

The new data adds to the evidence already gathered through the ADAPT-Sepsis research programme. This process evaluation provides the final piece of the puzzle on whether the approach could be adopted across the NHS.

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by the body's overwhelming response to infection and is responsible for thousands of deaths every year.

Patients often receive prolonged courses of powerful antibiotics because doctors are understandably cautious about stopping treatment too soon in severely ill patients.

But unnecessary antibiotic use can fuel antimicrobial resistance, increase side effects and add to healthcare costs.

The researchers found that procalcitonin-based guidance generated "stop antibiotics" recommendations nearly two days earlier than guidance based on CRP – a significant reduction.

Though doctors were more likely to follow advice generated from CRP testing, the earlier signals produced by procalcitonin offer greater potential to cut the total amount of antibiotics patients receive.

CRP testing more closely reflects existing prescribing habits and tends to recommend continuing standard care.

More than 17,000 blood samples and pieces of treatment advice were analysed during the trial.

The most common reason doctors chose not to follow recommendations to stop antibiotics was existing microbiology guidance recommending fixed treatment durations.

Other reasons included concerns about ongoing severe illness, persistent fever and raised inflammation markers.

Principle researcher Professor is Vice Dean for health and care partnerships at Ģ����Ƶ and Professor of critical care medicine at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust.

He said: "For decades, intensive care doctors have faced an impossible balancing act.

“Nobody wants to stop antibiotics too early and risk a patient's life, but continuing them unnecessarily also carries real dangers for individuals and society.

“What our study shows is that simple biomarker tests can provide an additional layer of reassurance when making these difficult decisions.

“The challenge now is helping healthcare teams feel confident acting on that information so patients receive exactly the treatment they need, for exactly as long as they need it."

He added: “Blood-test-guided antibiotic stewardship could become an important tool in the fight against antimicrobial resistance if implemented alongside existing clinical guidance and prescribing frameworks.

“These�� findings provide new insight into how hospitals could safely reduce antibiotic exposure in some of the sickest patients in the NHS while helping preserve the effectiveness of life-saving drugs for future generations.”

Professor Rupert Pearse, Chair of the NIHR-HTA commissioning committee, said: "NIHR-funded research like the ADAPT-Sepsis trial plays a key role in tackling the threat posed globally by antimicrobial resistance.

"The study team's results help to provide vital evidence for medical professionals, giving them a greater understanding of how best to treat sepsis patients and, crucially, identify when it is safe for antibiotic treatment to be halted."

The trial is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester (ARC-GM), the NIHR Manchester HealthTech Research Centre in Emergency and Acute Care and the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), in collaboration with The Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.��

• The paper Delivery and adherence of biomarker-guided antibiotic treatment protocols in the ADAPT-Sepsis clinical trial: an in trial descriptive process evaluation of daily procalcitonin- and C-reactive protein-guided protocols is published in he journal . ��DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.70439

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a powerful paradigm for policy optimisation in sequential decision making, it is used to train an intelligent agent (policy) to make optimal decisions by maximising some long-term reward. While online RL learns a policy by actively interacting with an environment and collecting new data through exploration and exploitation, offline RL learns a policy from a fixed, pre-collected dataset without further interaction with the environment. A typical challenge in offline RL is distributional shift, where the learned policy may encounter scenarios not covered by the offline data. This paper tackles distributional shift and integration of labelled (with rewards) data and unlabelled (without rewards) data in offline RL.

The proposed method, called semi-pessimistic pseudo labelling (SPL), makes it possible to take advantage of the unlabelled data to find a better policy than would be possible only using the labelled data. This improves the reliability of decision-making by improving estimation and accounting for uncertainty while remaining computationally efficient. The authors provide theoretical guarantees for the method and demonstrate its effectiveness through simulations, standard reinforcement learning benchmarks, and an application to adaptive deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease. By making better use of available data, the approach has the potential to improve AI systems in healthcare and other high-stakes domains.

You can find the full ‘.

Jin Zhu^1,2, Xin Zhou³, Jiaang Yao⁴, Gholamali Aminian⁵, Omar Rivasplata⁶, Simon Little⁴, Lexin Li³∗, Chengchun Shi¹∗
¹London School of Economics and Political Science, ²University of Birmingham, ³University of California at Berkeley, ⁴University of California at San Francesco, ⁵The Alan Turing Institute, ⁶University of Manchester. *Corresponding authors.

Professor Ashley Blom, Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, will leave Ģ����Ƶ next year to take up the role of Provost at the University of Melbourne.

During his time at Manchester, Ashley has made an important contribution to both the Faculty and the wider University. He has sharpened our approach to growing and diversifying research income, brought focus to how we attract, support and retain outstanding people, and provided thoughtful and determined leadership in addressing areas of challenge within the Faculty. As a highly valued member of the University Executive, he has also contributed insight and constructive challenge to the University’s strategy, strengthened engagement with philanthropists through Challenge Accepted, helped develop initiatives to improve the student experience and our NSS performance, and laid the groundwork for the renewal of the health estate through the integrated infrastructure plan.

Beyond the University, Ashley has worked closely with partners across Greater Manchester's health and care system. Through his roles with Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and Health Innovation Manchester, and his engagement with the NHS, civic and community partners, he has strengthened the Faculty's connections across the city-region and championed the contribution that research, education and innovation can make to better health outcomes.

Ashley is an orthopaedic surgeon and internationally recognised researcher in arthroplasty. Before joining Manchester, he was Vice-President and Head of the Faculty of Health at the University of Sheffield and, before that, Head of Bristol Medical School. He is an NIHR Senior Investigator, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a former President of the European Orthopaedic Research Society. His research has informed national guidance on joint replacement.

The University is extremely sorry to see Ashley leave, but we congratulate him on his appointment and wish him every success in this major new role. Interim leadership arrangements for the Faculty will be communicated in due course.

The University will begin the recruitment process for a new Vice-President and Dean immediately.

Professor Ashley Blom said: “This has been an exceptionally difficult decision. Manchester is a remarkable university, and I have enormous belief in the direction Duncan and colleagues have set through Manchester 2035. The University has developed a genuinely world-leading plan: ambitious about research and education, deeply rooted in its city and region, and focused on turning excellence into lasting public benefit.

“I am immensely grateful to colleagues, students and partners across the University and Greater Manchester for the openness, commitment and generosity they have shown me. It has been a privilege to work alongside them. Although the opportunity to become Provost at Melbourne is one I am honoured to take up, I will leave Manchester with real sadness and with every confidence in what the University will achieve between now and 2035.”

Professor Duncan Ivison, President and Vice-Chancellor of Ģ����Ƶ said: “I am sorry that Ashley will be leaving us, but I understand the opportunity he has been offered at a world-leading university and warmly congratulate him on his appointment. In a relatively short time at Manchester, he has made a significant contribution, sharpening our approach to research income, bringing open and collaborative leadership to the Faculty, responding with care and determination in tackling challenges, and strengthening our relationships across Greater Manchester’s health and care system.

“Ashley has been a valued colleague and member of the University Executive, and we will miss his judgement, generosity and commitment to Manchester. Melbourne is gaining an outstanding academic leader.

“We will communicate interim arrangements shortly and begin the recruitment of Ashley’s successor as soon as possible. In the meantime, I know colleagues will join me in thanking Ashley and wishing him and his family every success for the future.”

Professor Blom will take up the role in March 2027.

A new study led by researchers at Ģ����Ƶ has provided the first plant-wide assessment of chemical looping reforming, an emerging hydrogen production technology that combines hydrogen generation with built-in carbon capture.

Published in Carbon Capture Science & Technology, the research, conducted in collaboration with industrial partners, evaluates how chemical looping reforming could operate in real-world industrial settings, from small, decentralised facilities serving industrial boilers to large-scale plants supplying refineries and industrial clusters.

Unlike conventional hydrogen production methods, chemical looping reforming is a process that inherently concentrates and separates CO₂ by means of solid oxygen-carrier materials that circulate oxygen through a sequence of reactions while producing heat. Then, this heat drives the transformation of methane and steam into a hydrogen-containing mixture, syngas.

The role of hydrogen for industrial decarbonisation

Hydrogen is expected to play a crucial role in reducing emissions from sectors that are challenging to electrify, including heavy industry, chemicals and refining. However, producing low-carbon hydrogen efficiently and affordably remains a significant challenge. Blue hydrogen, produced from natural gas with carbon dioxide captured and not released, can bridge the energy-transition gap by leveraging existing supply infrastructure while offering a more environmentally friendly alternative to reach decarbonisation targets.

The researchers used detailed reactor, process and plant-level modelling to assess chemical looping reforming across two representative scales, a 2 MW plant suitable for decentralised industrial applications and a 600 MW facility aligned with large industrial hydrogen demand. Running continuously, a 2 MW-plant could meet the electricity needs of ~5000 average homes, while a 600 MW-plant could supply about 1.5 million homes.

, lead author from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Ģ����Ƶ, said:

Improving efficiency

The study found that the most advanced process designs could achieve thermal efficiencies of up to 75%, while capturing between 90% and 99% of carbon dioxide emissions. In several scenarios, the system also generated excess steam that could be exported for external use, further improving environmental performance.

The team compared chemical looping reforming with established low-carbon hydrogen production technologies, including steam methane reforming with carbon capture, autothermal reforming with carbon capture, and electrolyser-based hydrogen production. For large-scale hydrogen production, the researchers found that chemical looping reforming could outperform conventional reforming technologies in key measures of process efficiency while maintaining very high carbon capture rates. The system also demonstrated strong flexibility across scales, from regional industrial hubs to smaller distributed applications.

A key contribution of the work is its focus on practical deployment. Previous studies have often examined idealised process designs, whereas the Manchester-led team incorporated engineering constraints, including reactor operation, valve performance, heat integration requirements and safety considerations.

, corresponding author and Professor of Chemical Engineering at Ģ����Ƶ, said:��
"Over the past year, we have worked on technology development with industries to find cost-effective solutions, and the results of this work reinforce the role of chemical looping as a valid solution for syngas and hydrogen generation and its future deployment".

The researchers conclude that the best hydrogen production solution will depend on local energy systems, infrastructure and policy conditions. However, they suggest chemical looping reforming could become an attractive option during the transition to lower-carbon energy systems, particularly where industrial heat integration opportunities exist, and low-carbon electricity remains limited.

The work was delivered as part of , a £ 5.1 million collaborative project funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Meet the researcher

Isabel Pazmino Mayorga works on the development of novel technologies for decarbonisation through process intensification using modelling, simulation and techno-economic analysis in close collaboration with industrial partners.

• Email Dr Pazmino Mayorga >>
• Email the Business Engagement Team >>

Water can break, mix, swirl and change direction in ways that are difficult to reproduce accurately on a computer. Yet engineers and researchers increasingly rely on computer simulations to understand these flows and design safer, more efficient systems.

I argue that if we want computer simulations to predict these difficult flows reliably, we need turbulence models that are suited to the way the water is represented in the simulation.

Turbulence is one of the biggest challenges in predicting fluid motion. Its irregular and constantly changing motion affects how water mixes, transports energy and interacts with its surroundings. Because resolving every turbulent motion directly would require enormous computational resources, researchers use turbulence models to represent some of these effects.

But I believe we should question a common assumption: that a turbulence model appropriate for one type of simulation will automatically be appropriate when the flow is represented using a different approach.

In grid-based computer simulations, the flow is represented by dividing the computational domain into many small cells, forming what is known as a computational grid. Imagine dividing a swimming pool into millions of tiny boxes and calculating what happens inside each one. Over many years, a wide range of turbulence models has been developed for these grid-based simulations.

There is another way to represent a flow: particle-based simulations. Instead of describing the flow using a grid, particle-based simulations represent the fluid using many particles that move, interact and carry information about the flow around them.

This approach has an important advantage. In flows where the shape of the fluid or the region occupied by the water changes significantly, managing a grid can become difficult. Particles can move naturally with the flow, allowing particle-based simulations to handle these changes without requiring the same grid adjustments.

But this method needs a turbulence model that is designed to account for its own characteristics, rather than simply using a model transferred from grid-based simulations. A model being well established for grid-based simulations does not necessarily mean that it is compatible with particle-based simulations. Using an established model may be convenient, but convenience should not be confused with compatibility.

The need for compatibility becomes even more important in complex flows. Turbulence behaves differently near solid boundaries than farther away, while flows with changing water surfaces introduce additional interactions and numerical challenges. A model that performs well in an idealised test may therefore not be equally reliable in the engineering and environmental situations for which these simulations are ultimately used.

These challenges are at the centre of my PhD research at Ģ����Ƶ. Rather than simply applying an existing turbulence model to a particle-based simulation, I am investigating how turbulence modelling can be developed and evaluated specifically for particle-based simulations. My first year has focused on building the foundations through studying turbulence, particle-based simulations, existing research and numerical formulations, before moving towards the development of a new modelling approach.

The importance of these considerations becomes clearer when turbulence models are used for real-world decisions. As extreme flooding becomes an increasingly important engineering concern and investment grows in resilient infrastructure and offshore renewable energy, computational predictions can influence decisions with significant economic and societal consequences. For example, in an urban flood simulation, predictions of flow depth and velocity around buildings can influence the design of flood defences and evacuation planning, while uncertainties in turbulence modelling may affect these predicted flow characteristics. The more we rely on simulations, the more carefully we need to understand what lies behind their predictions.

This may sound like a specialised numerical problem, but it reflects a broader principle in computational science: models should be judged not only by the results they produce, but also by whether their assumptions are compatible with how the underlying system is represented.

My research therefore starts from a simple proposition: better modelling is not about more complexity; it is about the right model for the right method.

Meet the researcher

Jafar Gerdabi is a PhD researcher at Ģ����Ƶ working on turbulence modelling within the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method for free-surface flows.

• Email Mr Gerdabi >>
• Email the Business Engagement Team >>

The featured projects address issues that affect us all:

Dr Nimesh Dhungana: Putting communities at the heart of disaster recovery

Working alongside communities affected by earthquakes, floods and COVID-19 in Nepal, Dr Nimesh Dhungana co-developed a just recovery framework for more inclusive disaster recovery. The research has helped amplify community voices in policy discussions and informed advocacy and accountability initiatives across multiple countries.

Dr Wren Radford: Bringing creative reflection to everyday inequalities

Working with Poverty Truth, Dr Wren Radford used creative methods including poetry, reflection and workshops to explore lived experiences of everyday inequality. The project placed community voices at the centre of the research. Creating new insights into social change through the co-produced journal Filled to the Brim.

Dr Sophie Everest and Dr Andy Hardman: Understanding participation through filmmaking

Researchers worked with volunteers involved in a community gardening project at Platt Hall in Fallowfield to explore how people experience and participate in cultural spaces. Through co-produced films, the project used filmmaking as both a research method and evaluation tool, capturing how cultural participation shapes people's relationships with place and belonging.

While each project focuses on different challenges, disciplines and locations, they share a common principle that knowledge cannot be created in isolation. Humanities researchers work with communities as co-partners in the research process, creating opportunities for people to shape the questions being explored and contribute to the knowledge being produced.

This collaborative approach requires researchers to adapt and respond to the experiences, priorities and perspectives of the communities they work with. By doing so, research becomes more grounded in lived experience and better placed to drive meaningful change.

At its heart, the campaign explores how research creates impact in society. Through a focus on people and lived experience, humanities research helps ensure that knowledge serves a public purpose. Informing policy, shaping practice and strengthening communities.

Over the coming weeks, Ideas at Work will showcase stories from across the faculty that demonstrate the difference humanities research is making locally, nationally and internationally. Follow the campaign to discover how researchers and communities are working together to address some of the most pressing challenges facing society today.

Research team

Discipline

School of Arts, Languages and Cultures

Department of Religions and Theology

Partners

Poverty Truth Community (Glasgow)

Poverty Truth Community (Greater Manchester)

The question: What happens when we bring creative reflection to everyday inequalities?

Inequalities are often separated by different categories, whether in policy and government, or in research areas. Housing as different from mental health. Food poverty as different from children’s wellbeing. Asylum and disability as different again.

This can mean that the complexity of people’s lives is reduced to an issue, rather than seeing how various inequalities show up in people’s daily experiences. Equally it can ignore what people have already been doing to navigate these concerns, care for their community, and create wider change.

These issues were at the forefront of The Embodied Everyday project that asked what would happen if the research project was based on people exploring their everyday experiences together, with space to support creativity and conversation.

The idea

Working with members of Poverty Truth groups in Greater Manchester and Glasgow, the project examined how issues such as poverty, housing, disability, racism and mental health are often treated separately, even though they are deeply connected in people's everyday lives.

The project began with four ‘steering group’ sessions, led by Dr Radford and participants from different Poverty Truth groups, to ensure the project was designed in collaboration with people taking part. The steering group considered what questions were important to shape the research and how people wanted to take part.

As this took place during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, the steering group had to think carefully about access and energy levels. As well, the steering group considered whether responding to creative prompts in a group on a video call would be a good way to work together. In experimenting with these questions, the steering group tried out different approaches, before settling on sending people creative journalling packs with prompts, and inviting people to take part in online reflective group workshops.

Participants took part in reflective workshops and kept creative journals using writing, drawing, collage, photography and voice recordings. These humanities-based methods enabled people to express experiencesand understandings that might be difficult to capture through more traditional research approaches, resulting in the public-facing digital resource, .��
��

The creative reflective research

The research created opportunities for participants' experiences to inform wider conversations about inequality. For more than a decade, Poverty Truth Commissions across the UK have asked: ‘What if people who struggled against poverty were involved in making decisions about tackling poverty?’

The project started with weekly sessions of online reflective workshops, with people using their creative journal at times that suited them. They could write, draw, collage, use photographs, doodle, and also send voice notes. The project emphasised that creativity comes in lots of different forms and particularly thought about ‘everyday’ forms of creativity that are often overlooked, including cooking, playing, and imagining together if the world could be different.

The materials from the workshops and in the journals reflected how people make meaning in different ways in their lives, the responses were very specific to each individual but also showed the sense of community in listening to and supporting one another.

From research to impact

The project's creative reflection approach created space for everyday insights that are often overlooked in traditional research. Central to this work were long-standing humanities questions like ‘Whose knowledge?’ or ‘What kind of knowledge?’. By working collaboratively with participants, the research challenged assumptions about knowledge and power, encouraging audiences to reconsider how lived experience is recognised and understood.

notes that listening to lived experience is not a one-off event. It requires recognising the thoughtful work communities put in to reflect on and share their experiences, and not losing that context. As Filled to the Brim states:

“We can’t be summarised or understood completely in these pages. We keep living, changing, creating, reshaping our worlds. We encourage you to keep listening to and with people who are most impacted by inequalities in our society”

Through ongoing dialogue with participants, the project developed a creative output that reflected the richness and individuality of their experiences. Rather than categorising stories into predefined themes, the digital collection presents journal pages, workshop responses and creative works that capture the complexity of everyday life and the ingenuity people draw upon in response to inequality. The collection takes its name from a poem written by a participant.

Since its publication, has continued to extend the reach of the research, sparking conversations about how inequality is understood and addressed. It invites audiences to consider a different starting point: what becomes possible when we move beyond categorising experiences and instead centre people's knowledge, creativity and lived realities?

The difference it made

• Creating space for reflection and connection: Participants reported that combining creative journalling with small-group workshops helped them reflect on their own experiences while learning from people with different backgrounds and perspectives. The process created opportunities for personal reflection, connection and solidarity across diverse experiences of inequality.
• Changing research practice: The project demonstrated how collaborative research can move beyond extractive approaches that simply collect people's stories. Participants were involved in shaping the research and deciding on outputs, helping to establish a model of co-produced research that values community knowledge and creativity. Dr Radford has highlighted how steering groups and collaborative design processes have subsequently influenced their wider approach to research practice.
• Broadening public understanding of inequality: Filled to the Brim challenged narrow discussions of poverty by showing how housing, health, discrimination, care, belonging and everyday survival are interconnected. By sharing participants' creative reflections through a publicly accessible digital resource, the project has encouraged richer public conversations about inequality, lived experience and social change.