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.

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.

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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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:

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.��

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:

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.

Research team

Discipline

School of Arts, Languages and Cultures

Humanitarian Conflict and Response Institute

Partners

Accountability Lab, Nepal

The question: What happens when local voices shape global challenges?

Navigating disaster across the world can raise several questions, including whose voices should shape disaster governance. This research aims to make disaster governance more inclusive and accountable by strengthening the role of civil society in disaster recovery and how grassroots activism can influence disaster policy.

The idea

The research explored how people affected by disasters can have a stronger voice in decisions about recovery and rebuilding. Focusing on Nepal, the study looked at how communities, civil society activists and campaign groups responded to the 2015 earthquakes, the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2024 floods. Dr Dhungana has developed a longer-term research relationship to examine the barriers that prevent local people from influencing recovery efforts and has explored ways to improve accountability, participation and fairness in post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. The thinking behind this? These policies and programmes will be more effective and equitable when approached from a rights-based perspective and shaped by the people most affected by them.

The close partnership built with activists and community organisations on the ground for many years allowed this research to be shaped from the inside rather than the outside looking in. The research used social science and humanities-based methods, including ethnographic observation, collaborative workshops and community discussions, to understand people's lived experiences of disaster and recovery. The findings helped create the Just Recovery framework, which puts human rights, social justice and local voices at the centre of rebuilding efforts, with lessons that can be applied beyond Nepal in countries including Liberia, Pakistan and South Africa.

Working alongside communities

The project brought researchers together with civil society organisations, policymakers and local communities affected by disasters in Nepal.

Key partners included Accountability Lab, a group supporting local changemakers within communities to develop creative ideas around governance issues, and its network of activists, who develop practical approaches to improving accountability in disaster recovery. Participants included community members with lived experience of the 2015 earthquakes, the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2024 floods, whose perspectives helped shape the research findings.

The project also engaged government officials and disaster management stakeholders, using workshops, policy discussions and public hearings to help ensure that evidence from communities could inform decision-making in recovery contexts.

From research to impact

Research and evidence gathering: The project worked with communities affected by earthquakes, floods and COVID-19 in Nepal to understand barriers to participation and accountability in disaster recovery.

Knowledge exchange and collaboration: Researchers, activists and practitioners co-produced evidence and developed the Just Recovery framework, sharing findings through workshops, community discussions and policy roundtables.

Supporting advocacy and practice: Accountability Lab and its partners used the research to strengthen their advocacy for more inclusive, rights-based approaches to disaster recovery and governance.

Influencing wider change: The findings informed discussions with policymakers and practitioners in Nepal, while lessons from the project are being shared through Accountability Lab's international network in Liberia, Pakistan and South Africa.

The difference it made

• Supporting young activists and civil society organisations: The research helped Accountability Lab identify evidence-based ways to improve citizen participation and accountability in disaster response and recovery. The findings are being used to strengthen advocacy efforts in Nepal and are informing Accountability Lab's work in Liberia, Pakistan and South Africa.
• Building networks: Through the co-production of research, the project strengthened the skills and connections of local researchers, activists and practitioners working on disaster governance and migration issues. It also helped Accountability Lab expand its relationships with government agencies and migrant rights groups.
• Giving communities a stronger voice: Public hearings in the districts of Banke and Kavrepalanchok brought together many voices, including migrants, local government representatives, NGOs and media organisations. These events created opportunities for community members to raise concerns and share their experiences through local media coverage.
• Influencing policy and public debate: The project promoted the Just Recovery approach, which places social justice, human rights and community participation at the centre of disaster recovery. Its findings have informed discussions among policymakers and are contributing to wider conversations about disaster risk reduction, climate justice and local democracy in Nepal and beyond.

Research team

Discipline

School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
Department of Drama and Film
Department of Art History and Cultural Practises

Partners

Platt Hall (Manchester Art Galleries)
Friends of Platt Fields
Manchester Urban Diggers
Platt Fields Market Garden

Including:

Liz Mitchell, Platt Hall Lead
Meg Parnell, Garden Project Lead
Mary Collins, garden volunteer and filmmaker
Rashid Mhar, garden volunteer and filmmaker
Helen Steyne, garden volunteer and filmmaker

The question: What happens when gardeners become filmmakers?

Since 2019, Platt Hall has been reimagining its role as a museum, working with locals to create a space designed with, rather than simply for, its community. Sophie Everest and Andy Hardman, researcher-filmmakers from Ģ����Ƶ, have undertaken practice-based research across a range of museum and gallery contexts, embedding filmmaking within engagement, learning, curatorial and evaluation practices.

What began as a collaboration to document Platt Hall's transformation with Dr Everest and Dr Hardman that asked: can filmmaking act as a more effective method of museological evaluation that does not just record, but shapes, change?

The idea

Participants were involved in filmmaking over an extended period, starting with observational filming of activities, long and short-form interviews and public screenings. The project then evolved into three films co-produced with volunteers from , following work to transform the Hall’s disused exterior into a green, community space.

What makes the co-production method distinctive is that film is not simply used to document outcomes. Filmmaking is a collaborative and socially engaged act, requiring participants to pause and evaluate at each stage of planning, directing, camera work, editing, reviewing, and screening.

This intentional, slow process creates repeated opportunities for participants to reflect on their perspectives, relationships, and sense of place, and capture how they change over time, even when these changes might exceed the written word. The result is an approach in which evaluation is more than a final reporting function, but an embedded part of the project itself, creating space for learnings to be identified and applied as the work develops.

The collaboration

Located at the crossroad of the South Manchester neighbourhoods of Rusholme, Fallowfield and Moss Side, Platt Hall was the Gallery of Costume until 2017. Since 2019, it has been undergoing a transformative redevelopment as part of the project, funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

As part of this work, The Garden Project was launched in 2021. Manchester Urban Diggers (MUD) and Platt Fields Market Garden provided the start-up design, which has since been implemented by volunteers in partnership with Friends of Platt Fields. The result is a shared space that is enjoyed both by individuals and community groups, including Stay & Play families, Health & Wellbeing participants, local primary schools, and ESOL groups.

Working with Keiran Hanson, Lecturer in Film Practice at Ģ����Ƶ, gardeners learned narrative techniques, how to direct the camera, and editing skills. The results were three co-produced films:

• A Tale of Healing, Inspiration & Biscuit Diversity in the Platt Hall Garden Project by Mary Collins: An exploration of Mary’s journey of growth whilst volunteering in the garden and how the project helped her reconnect with others amidst personal struggles.
• Compost by Rashid Mhar: A deep dive into the lifecycle of compost, from its beginning through to decomposition and renewal as vital garden sustenance. This lifecycle acts as a parallel to the transformation occurring at Platt Hall.
• The Pleasure of the Work by Helen Steyne: A fascinating catalogue of the before and after work completed on the garden, as well as the community who helped shape it.

All films can be watched . This research was funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

From research to impact

The research has two core strands that provided routes to impact:

1. For Platt Hall, the co-produced films supported its shift towards becoming a community-first institution by placing volunteers, neighbourhood groups, and other local voices at the centre of how the museum understands and presents its work.

2. For museological research and the wider heritage sector, the project is a proof-of-concept that demonstrates how filmmaking can be an effective method of capturing a broader range of reflections and learnings over time.

The difference it made

In their words

By the numbers

5 years of collaborative research. Over 50 screening attendees. 3 co-produced films:

What next?

This project is just one part of an ongoing partnership between researchers and Platt Hall and the wider Manchester Art Galleries portfolio. Building on this work, future and wider research questions may include:

• How can collaborative filmmaking be embedded as a sustainable evaluation methodology within the wider cultural sector?
• What are the limits, risks and ethical challenges of using film as a method of evaluation and shared research within a consultative process of institutional change?
• What wider value does filmmaking hold as a method of documenting and generating the dynamic social relations between people, practice, collections and place that occur in museums and heritage spaces?

A new opera created and directed by University of Manchester bicentenary fellow will invite its audience to shape the story live at the Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall on Friday 6 November 2026.

In��Ghost of the AI Empire, audience members can take part anonymously using their phones. Their choices affect scenes as the performance unfolds: for example, during a boat journey, they can calm or raise a storm, influencing whether a fugitive reaches land. An intelligent-stage system responds to the collective mood in the hall. Even the cast will not know in advance how the story ends.

The opera project and its intelligent-stage system were created by Dr Alexandra Huang-Kokina, Bicentenary Music Fellow at the University of Manchester and Artistic Director of Operactive Arts. It reimagines the Japanese ghost legend��Yotsuya Kaidan��in a future ruled by an AI empire, bringing elements of Japanese Noh theatre together with European opera. Live singers and musicians perform a work sung in English and Japanese, with English surtitles.

Dr Huang-Kokina said: “Opera has always been an art form of innovation. We wanted a show that responds to the people in the hall, with singers, musicians and audience creating an experience unique to that night alone. Immersive technology deepens that shared emotional experience and opens up new participatory possibilities for the live stage, while the artists remain in full creative control.”

The production has two parts:��The Covenant, with music by Ryan Morgan, and��Yurei, with music by Atzi Muramatsu. Harry O’Brien (University of Manchester Bicentenary PhD Scholar) provides electroacoustic sound design, and Nick Bond (University of Manchester Music and Drama alumnus) is artistic co-director. Earlier versions were performed in Edinburgh and Lund in 2025. In May 2026, Operactive Arts ran a human–AI improvisation workshop in Manchester as part of English National Opera’s��Tuning into Opera��initiative.

Ghost of the AI Empire��takes place at 7pm on Friday 6 November at the Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall, Martin Harris Centre, Manchester. A pre-concert talk will feature Professor Michelle Phillips, Director at Creative Manchester, Dr Courtney Chrimes, Lecturer in Fashion Business and Marketing in the Department of Materials, and Dr Alexandra Huang-Kokina.

Tickets cost £15, or £10 for concessions. A dress rehearsal will be open to students.��
For further information and to book, visit:

Ruth Flanaghan was the Community Innovation Practitioner in 2025-26, based at Ģ����Ƶ, leading the project Unity and Strength: Banner Making as a Tool to Enhance Belonging and Community Cohesion.

Delivered through this Community Innovation Practitioner (CIP) programme, this work brought together Cartwheel Arts, Creative Manchester at Ģ����Ƶ and Heritage Crafts UK as partners to explore how heritage crafts, embedded within communities and supported by Greater Manchester's devolved policy context, can contribute to good growth. This ensures more people can contribute to, and benefit from, economic success by combining both asset and place-based approaches.

Ruth's recommendations from the project include calling on funders to recognise that long-term investment in devolved, collaborative, creative work can build cross-cultural connections, wellbeing, belonging, and civic participation.

The research, published at a pivotal moment for devolution under Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s new government, argues that transferring greater powers and resources to places must be accompanied by new ways of involving communities in the decisions, research and innovation that shape their futures.

Funded by the UKRI (AHRC) and led by , the findings come from the programme’s .

The Community Innovation Practitioner Awards represent an investment of almost £500,000, catalysing place-based research and innovation across all four nations of the UK.

have today published a new collection of , devolved and Creative Communities .

Listen to Ruth's and read her and

The Bloomsbury Prize celebrates outstanding scholarship that deepens understanding of Pakistan and South Asia. It recognises academic books that make original contributions to the study of the region’s history, politics, society, economy and culture, while illuminating the lives and experiences of its people.

The prize jury praised Aijazi’s cutting-edge experimentation with scholarly narrative, rooted in deeply compassionate ethnographic research and attentive to the emotional terrain of the disputed territory of Kashmir:

“An ethnography of life in ecologically fragile, militarised borderlands, Atmospheric Violence offers both a methodological and a conceptual innovation, making a compelling case for rethinking how disaster is researched and represented. Instead of framing disaster as rupture, the book foregrounds friendship, kinship, and emotional life as central to recovery. Aijazi combines rich empirical detail with strong theoretical grounding, linking affect and marginality through vivid vignettes from remote valleys in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir.”

Published in 2024 by the University of Pennsylvania Press, Atmospheric Violence has now received six international accolades, underscoring the book’s growing recognition across scholarship on South Asia, disasters, ethnography and social justice.

In the book, Aijazi challenges conventional approaches that treat disasters as isolated catastrophic events or moments of direct physical trauma. Instead, he conceptualises violence as an omnipresent condition, an ambient “atmosphere” woven into everyday life alongside military checkpoints, no-go zones and fractured landscapes. Against this backdrop, the book foregrounds the everyday practices of friendship, kinship, care and repair through which people make life possible amid ongoing violence.

The book is available to read open access .

Professor Sadiah Qureshi’s exploration of extinction, empire and the natural world is among six works shortlisted for the 2026 Wolfson History Prize.

Now in its 54th year, the prize – which celebrates historical non-fiction that combines outstanding research with compelling and accessible writing for non-specialist readers - is the most valuable history writing prize in the UK. The winner will receive £50,000, while each shortlisted author will receive £5,000. The winner of the 2026 prize will be announced in December.

Vanished, published by Allen Lane, examines the history of extinction and challenges the idea that it is simply a natural phenomenon.

Professor Qureshi’s book argues that extinction is a surprisingly modern idea that has allowed humans to imagine themselves as on the verge of apocalyptic mass extinction and desperate to resurrect lost species. Her research shows that extinction is both an evolutionary process and a human act, leaving us facing chilling political choices in the present.

The Wolfson judges described Vanished as a “dazzling” work, praising its breadth and originality as an account of “the idea and reality of extinction in the natural and human world”.

Exploring the history of extinction

Vanished explores how extinction – now fundamental to modern science and environmentalism – was only recognised as inherent in the natural world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The book also explores how new ideas about animal extinction were quickly intertwined with debates about race, prehistory, and conflict, revealing the human choices and political forces that have shaped understandings of extinction.

By uncovering the cultural, political and imperial contexts in which extinction was first understood, Professor Qureshi traces the roots of many contemporary political crises from climate change to rights for all life on earth.

Vanished was previously shortlisted for the 2025 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize, which celebrates the best popular science writing from around the world.

The Wolfson nomination is the latest major recognition for Professor Qureshi’s work.

In 2025 she was awarded the prestigious Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal and Lecture by the Royal Society – its highest honour for a historian of science – in recognition of her internationally acclaimed research on science, race, empire and the history of extinction.

Historian of science, race and empire

Professor Qureshi is a writer and historian of science, race and empire and is Chair of Modern British History at Ģ����Ƶ.

She has made major contributions to the history of race, science, and empire while also engaging audiences beyond academia through her writing, media work, museum collaborations and public discussions.

Her writing has appeared in publications including the London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement and New Statesman.

The 2026 Wolfson History Prize shortlist spans almost 3,000 years of human history and includes books on ancient Mesopotamia, Europe’s last pagan societies, the German Peasants’ War, Alfred Tennyson and Liverpool’s post-industrial decline.

The winner will be announced on Tuesday 1 December.

Published by Routledge as part of the��Routledge Research in Art and Politics��series, the volume moves beyond understanding capitalism simply as an economic system in which artworks are bought and sold. Instead, it considers the wider ways in which capitalist structures shape artistic production, creative labour, technologies, cultural institutions and the conditions within which art is produced and experienced.

Edited by , the collection brings together 24 contributors offering diverse perspectives on the relationship between art and capitalism since the advent of modernity. The book is organised around five key themes:��Art Markets, Money and Myths; Work, Labour and the Artist; Capitalist Technologies; Spaces of Art and Capital: Institutions and Beyond; and Crisis, Contestation and Critique.

Reflecting on the publication of the book, Dr Child said: “Compiling a coherent edited monograph is not an easy task (especially when covering such a vast subject!). It involves drawing on established networks built over many years, discovering new researchers, supporting ECRs, and building working relationships and trust with your authors."

Contributors explore subjects ranging from art markets, artistic labour and the contemporary craft economy to racial capitalism, artificial intelligence and artistic practice, private museums, global cultural institutions, extractivism and colonialism. Questions of race, gender, class and global and geographical inequality run throughout the collection.

By bringing these perspectives into conversation, Art and Capitalism: A Contemporary Perspective demonstrates how the relationship between art and capitalism extends beyond questions of commerce to encompass the social, political, technological and institutional conditions of cultural production. It also considers how artists and cultural practitioners have contested capitalist structures and imagined alternative ways of working and organising.

The book will be of interest to scholars, students and practitioners working across art history, fine art, museum studies, curatorial studies, politics and visual culture.

Art and Capitalism: A Contemporary Perspective, edited by Danielle Child, is published by Routledge:

As Director, leads the strategic direction and development of the University’s interdisciplinary research platform, bringing together academics, cultural partners and communities to advance creative research, practice and innovation.

Michelle brings considerable research and creative industry engagement experience to the role. Her research practice explores audience response to live and recorded music, neurological response to music listening, music and time, perception of contemporary music, entrepreneurship, and music and Parkinson’s disease.

To find out more about Michelle and her research, we sent her some questions and learned about her career to date, what culture has inspired her recently, and her love of bubble tea:

What attracted you to the role of Director of Creative Manchester and what excites you most about joining Creative Manchester at this point in its journey?

I’m really excited about this role, and have been warmly welcomed by you all at Creative Manchester! I know that I have big shoes to fill after John’s term, and I hope I can do the job that the marvellous Platform, the fantastic team, and the University deserve.

Creative Manchester is a shining beacon of everything that gets me up in the morning - innovation, interdisciplinarity, partnerships and collaboration, and place-based research that is relevant and impactful. I’ve loved being part of some Platform events including a panel of creativity and AI, and on ‘The science and politics of togetherness in music’ as part of the ‘Neither Factory Records nor Madchester’ event at Jodrell Bank last summer, and attending multiple others. We often fall into working in disciplinary silos, but I find that putting knowledge into boxes - for example, the arbitrary arts and sciences divide - is often unhelpful, and can prevent us from developing really exciting and truly groundbreaking ways of doing and seeing things. Expertise comes from all corners, and the Platform’s work across the University, city and beyond, embraces that.

The Creative Manchester Platform is in such a brilliant place, having thrived thanks to John, Anne-Marie, and the whole team. What excites me about joining at this time is the chance to build on this, and find opportunities ahead to experiment, explore, bring different people together in new ways, and think about how to do meaningful work that can feed into future research, practice and policy.

For colleagues and partners who may not know you yet, could you tell us a little about your background and what has shaped your career?

I grew up in Doncaster, Yorkshire where I was lucky enough to benefit from the kind of free music education that is sadly rare these days. I found my home and tribe in music and musical theatre. I studied music and German at the University of Nottingham, and (after a stint training as a chartered accountant with KPMG) then a PhD in music, maths, and time perception in the Centre for Music and Science at the University of Cambridge.

I was at the Royal Northern College of Music between now and then, for 16 wonderful years, where I was involved in running the undergraduate programmes, and leading the entrepreneurship training for students. I chaired the national subject association for music (MusicHE, formerly NAMHE) and ran a multi-million pound project across performing arts universities to explore how we can best prepare arts graduates for freelance careers.

My research is in the area of music psychology, and in particular, what makes a live music experience special (using behavioural, neurological and physiological methods), and how music can help people living with Parkinson’s. as part of their ‘101 jobs that change the world' video series a few years ago.

I have longstanding and treasured collaborators in psychology, neuroscience and chemistry at the University of Manchester, and look forward to meeting lots of other researchers with similar interests.

My favourite kind of research is with interdisciplinary teams and industry partners, and is designed from the starting point of what people need. I’ve soaked up any opportunity to work with people across Greater Manchester, whether that has involved co-designing the Science and Industry’s exhibition ‘Turn It Up: The Power of Music’, or running a project which matched up composers and people living with Parkinson’s to write new pieces of music together. I was very proud to win the I Love Manchester Alan Turing Award last year, which ‘honours the boldest problem-solvers in Greater Manchester, individuals and organisations using fresh ideas and forward thinking’, and to be nominated for a ‘Northern Power Women’ and a ‘Women of the Year’ Award this year.

I live in Salford with my husband and our two boys aged 12 and 10, who keep us busy with board games, video games and Dungeons and Dragons. I also spend time playing tenor and baritone saxophone with my good friends in the Equinox saxophone ensemble, and enjoy serving as one of two Editors-in-Chief of the journal ‘Psychology of Music’.

As you begin your tenure, what are some of the priorities you hope to focus on during your first year?

I find the University’s ‘From Manchester for the World 2035’ strategy very inspiring, and the motivation to ‘build things that matter’. It champions everything that I believe a university should, with its focus on innovation, impact, collaboration, questions of what knowledge and skills our age demands and what changes lie ahead, and the aim of turning ideas into action locally and globally. I love the idea of building and nurturing solid foundations, whilst also leaping into new spaces.

It’s fantastic to see the Platforms woven throughout the strategy, and my priorities, along with being shaped by John’s advice and legacy, and the wisdom of the Creative Manchester team, are in line with that: bridging gaps between people and teams within and external to the University and making new links to create exciting future partnerships and projects. My focus is also on furthering and creating new links between Creative Manchester, teaching and supporting new partner-enabled learning initiatives, and mobilising people and resources to create new ways of thinking and doing to turn discovery to impact, and ultimately make the world a better place.

What role do you think creativity can play in addressing some of society's big challenges?

Universities have a job to do, and it’s an urgent one. There are huge challenges and problems in the world. As powerhouses of knowledge and skills, universities need to have an impact, and to make the world a better place for everyone. I think we’re failing if we don’t seek to do that every day.

Creativity is about finding new ways of doing things. We are organisations full of passion and motivation, of new knowledge and perspectives from all backgrounds and from all around the world. We’re a microcosm of brilliant collaborators who can put our heads together, with our friends in industry and in our cities and regions, to tackle the problems that people are facing. Working together as teams of people with different backgrounds, cultures, languages, perspectives and ways of seeing and being in the world, we can do so much more than alone as individuals. Just thinking about this makes me excited - we can make such a difference finding innovative ways to do and think about things, together.

Are there any books, exhibitions or cultural experiences you've enjoyed recently that have inspired you?

I’m an avid reader, and recently have loved George Saunders’ ‘Vigil’, Douglas Stuart’s ‘John of John’ and Lee Yuri’s ‘Broccoli Punch’ (translated from the Korean by Amber Hj Kim). Recent musical highlights have been Mika live at the AO Arena, and RNCM Artist of the Year pianist Liana Storey playing Rachmaninov’s ‘Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini’ at the Bridgewater Hall.

An experience that will stick with me for a long time was a visit to the ‘Birds’ exhibition at the Mauritshuis in The Hague earlier this year. I was blown away! I’d mainly wanted to see ‘The Goldfinch’ (especially given how much I love Donna Tartt’s wonderful novel of the same name), but the exhibition was so much more than that moment. Taking up only one room, the exhibition includes not only Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of flying machines, and works by Rembrandt, Picasso and Emin, but also pieces which invite visitors to question their relationship with birds and the natural world; a video of a Greenpeace campaign which depicts a ballet dancer covered in oil whilst performing the ‘dying swan’, and documentary footage showing how chicks are farmed in factories. For me it was everything an exhibition should be – beautiful, stimulating, and provocative.

Creativity means different things to different people. What does creativity mean to you?

I see creativity very broadly. Everyone is creative. For me, creativity is about making new ideas that have value for others. That value can take many forms - cultural, social, community, economic, environmental or value in terms of representation or health and wellbeing. I think we risk limiting what impact we can have and what new knowledge we can make if we see some people as creative and not others, or if we see value from one point of view only, e.g., if we see financial value as the main or only motivator for an idea.

Quick fire:

1. Coffee or tea?
   Either! Can I add bubble tea to the list and choose that?
   

2. A cultural event you're looking forward to this year?
   Two cultural events I’ve waited for took place over summer - the release of Nintendo’s ‘Splatoon Raiders’ (I’m a big video gamer) and the announcement of the Booker Prize long list (something I look forward to every year!). I’m now really looking forward to the Manchester Literature Festival event with Russell T Davies and Bernardine Evaristo on 11th Oct - two cultural heroes of mine.
   
3. What's on your playlist right now?
   My ‘favourites’ streaming playlist has 218 tracks on it and I’m always looking for new things to listen to. My latest playlist additions are ‘You got me singing’ by Leonard Cohen, ‘Ko’u I Noa’ for solo viola by Lanzilotti, and ‘Django (live)’ by The Oscar Peterson Trio (from an album of live recordings never previously heard until their release earlier this year).
   

4. One word that describes your vision for Creative Manchester?
   Innovative.
   

Ģ����Ƶ and the Fear and Belonging in Minority Buddhist Communities Research Project Team invite you to a launch event for ‘grasp, grasp’ by Sian Fan, with an artist Q&A led by Chris Wright, former Executive Director of FutureEverything.

The event takes place on Wednesday 30 September, 6.30-8.15pm, at . Tickets are free (limited capacity, advance booking required).

‘grasp, grasp’ is a digital artwork which draws on the anonymised life stories of members of two different Buddhist communities, collected by University of Manchester academics Erica Baffelli and Jane Caple.

The work is a web-based experience filled with emotive photography and soundscapes, which traverses multiple pathways. It changes shape, operating in different sequences and moving in different directions, inviting viewers to reflect on the ephemerality of emotions.

Without attempting to pin it down, the work hopes to assert the complicated beauty of human experience. It seeks to form a blurry vision of lives lived, that, with your gaze soft and your grip gentle, you can find yourself enveloped within.

Doors at the venue will open at 6.30pm, with the live stream beginning online at 7pm. The artist presentation will be followed by a drinks reception for guests attending in person.

Sian Fan is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist. Her work combines movement, the body and technology to explore embodiment, identity, and human experience in the digital age. She is particularly interested in popularised depictions of Asiatic bodies in movies, anime and video games; in folkloric stories both modern and traditional; and in the thresholds of human identity where one exists as both and neither at the same time. Read more at .

For more information and to book tickets, visit .

Since appointing its first research leads in 2022, has continued to grow, nurturing exciting interdisciplinary research and convening research communities at Ģ����Ƶ and the city region. In line with the University’s Manchester 2035 strategy, the platform is working to convene a challenge-led research model in collaboration with our Cultural Institutions, partners and communities that champions our world-leading collections and archives, amplifying their reach. To achieve this, a new Research Theme focussed on activating the University’s and Cultural Institutions’ vast archival collections is being developed from September 2026. This theme compliments Creative Manchester’s existing three research themes - , and – which continue to remain relevant and are expanding in line with the aspirations set out in Manchester 2035.

The newly appointed Academic Lead for Research Partnerships (Special, Scientific and Cultural Collections), , will work closely with the Platform’s leadership, Creative Manchester Director Professor Michelle Phillips and Deputy Director , as well as with Associate Vice President (Cultural Portfolio), to develop and help coordinate activity across the theme.

In this role, Professor Carden-Coyne will focus on developing the academic work and grant capture on research collections across University of Manchester Library and the wider Cultural Institution collections’ research activities. She will partner and engage with our diverse community of academic researchers, curators, conservators and imaging specialists, and further grow the Platform’s interdisciplinary research networks to address strategic opportunities.

Professor Ana Carden-Coyne is Director of the Centre for the Cultural History of War (CCHW) in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures. She is a cultural historian and curator inspired by people’s creative responses to war and conflict, acts of resistance, and calls for civil and human rights. Working closely with other disciplines, cultural practitioners, and museums energises her thinking. When activated through collaboration, co-curation, and shared decision-making, the cultural leadership of contemporary communities and artists not only enriches our collective knowledge, but also transforms our human connections. Her work is grounded in deep respect for the makers of objects, artworks, and stories that are held dear in the past and present, which can be brought to light for future generations.

As part of her recently funded Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) project (2021-24) she published the accompanying project book (MUP, open access) this year.

For more details on Professor Carden-Coyne's work and publications, please refer to her

Manchester Literature Festival returns from 9-25 October, giving the city’s book lovers the opportunity to come together to share their passion for language, to be entertained, to learn, and to reflect on their connections with place, politics and people.

Creative Manchester and the Centre for New Writing will be supporting an exciting series of events, with highlights including influential and much-loved literary voices, conversations with acclaimed debut novelists, podcast recordings, poetry readings and much more!

The full schedule of partnership events are as follows:

• – Friday 9 October, 7pm, Royal Northern College of Music
• (SOLD OUT) – Saturday 10 October, 6pm, Manchester Museum
• – Sunday 11 October, 2pm, Martin Harris Centre
• – Sunday 11 October, 4.30pm, Martin Harris Centre
• – Monday 12 October, 7.30pm, Royal Northern College of Music
• – Wednesday 14 October, 7.30pm, Martin Harris Centre
• – Sunday 18 October, 5pm, Manchester Museum
• – Wednesday 21 October, 7pm, Central Library
• – Wednesday 21 October, 7.30pm, Contact Theatre
• – Thursday 22 October, 7pm, John Rylands
• – Sunday 25 October, 3pm, Royal Northern College of Music

For more information and to book tickets, visit the

• The pronunciation of the "happy vowel" remains one of the strongest indicators of social class in Manchester
• Middle-class speakers tend to use a tenser vowel (more like “happee”) than working-class speakers (closer to “happeh”)
• The feature has remained remarkably stable across generations despite major social and economic change
• Researchers also identified differences linked to ethnicity among working-class speakers
• Speakers showed little difference between formal and informal speech, suggesting they are largely unaware of the variation

A small sound with a big social meaning

Analysing recordings from people of different ages, genders, ethnicities and social backgrounds, the researchers found that pronunciation of this vowel remains one of the clearest markers of social class in the city's accent.

Middle-class speakers were more likely to produce a pronunciation closer to "happee", while working-class speakers tended to use the traditionally broader Manchester pronunciation, closer to "happeh".

The researchers also found differences linked to ethnicity, with working-class South Asian Mancunians generally producing a tenser vowel than their White and Black working-class peers.

A feature that has resisted change

Despite the dramatic social, economic and cultural changes Manchester has experienced over recent decades, the researchers found no evidence that this aspect of the city's accent is disappearing.

Instead, the pronunciation has remained strikingly stable across generations, making it an unusual example of a speech feature that has resisted change over time.

The study also found that speakers changed this feature very little between formal and informal speech, suggesting that many people are largely unaware they are using it.

What the researchers say

"Our findings show that one of the most distinctive features of the Manchester accent has remained remarkably resilient, even in a city that has undergone enormous social transformation," said Dr Maciej Baranowski, Senior Lecturer in English Sociolinguistics at Ģ����Ƶ.

"The way Mancunians pronounce the 'happy' vowel is influenced by factors such as social class and ethnicity, but interestingly not by age. That tells us it is a stable feature of the accent that has been passed from generation to generation, rather than one that is changing over time.

 

"Looking at how accents are distributed tells us a lot about society,” said co-author Dr Danielle Turton, Senior Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at Lancaster University. “Although people sometimes change aspects of their speech as they move into different social or professional environments, many retain strong connections to the way they grew up speaking.

"It's important because it shows that local working-class speech isn't simply being washed away by regeneration or social change. These local ways of speaking remain an important part of Manchester's identity."

What accents tell us about society

The researchers argue that accents continue to reflect wider patterns of inequality and opportunity, challenging the idea that social class has become irrelevant in modern Britain.

At the same time, they suggest growing exposure to different regional accents through podcasts and social media may be helping to reduce traditional prejudices about how people sound.

The study is based on acoustic analysis of recordings from 109 Manchester-born speakers, making it one of the largest detailed investigations of this aspect of the city's accent.

Publication details

The paper was published in journal Language Variation and Change.

DOI:

• ‘Ragebait’ is an increasingly popular strategy for generating attention online

• Content creators are engineering confrontations to provoke emotional reactions

• Audiences are drawn to feelings of moral superiority and catharsis

• Online ‘accountability’ is often reduced to spectacle rather than real change

• The trend reflects a shift in how public shaming operates in digital culture

Why this matters

From callout videos to viral confrontations in public spaces, outrage has become a powerful currency in today’s attention economy.

Dr John’s research examines the widely viewed ‘Cart Narcs’ video series, where members of the public are confronted - and often provoked - for failing to return their shopping trolleys to storage bays in supermarket car parks.

While such content appears to promote accountability, the study argues that its real appeal lies in carefully staged conflict.

“Ragebait works because it blurs the line between entertainment and morality,” says Dr John. “It invites viewers to feel they are witnessing justice being done, while actually consuming a highly controlled and repeatable form of provoked outrage.”

Entertainment disguised as accountability

The study identifies a formula behind successful ragebait content - creators construct predictable scenarios, provoke emotional reactions, and then frame themselves as morally justified.

This allows audiences to experience what researchers describe as ‘accountability entertainment’ which stages wrongdoing and its punishment, but without any meaningful consequences beyond the screen.

Rather than encouraging broader social change, the research suggests this format focuses attention on individuals instead of systems.

“Viewers are encouraged to judge and condemn, but not to engage with the wider social conditions that shape people’s behaviour,” Dr John explains. “Accountability becomes something you watch - not something you do.”

The politics of outrage

The research also highlights how ragebait repurposes elements of callout culture – something which is originally rooted in social justice activism - into monetised entertainment.
In doing so, it shifts power dynamics - instead of challenging powerful figures, creators often target ordinary individuals, amplifying their mistakes for mass audiences.

This creates what the study describes as a form of ‘atomised politics’, where collective action is replaced by individual judgement and fleeting moments of online outrage.

What needs to change

The study calls for greater awareness of how emotionally provocative content is produced and consumed, particularly as platforms continue to reward engagement-driven formats.

Understanding the mechanics behind ragebait, says Dr John, is key to recognising its broader social impact.

Publication details

The research is published in Information, Communication & Society.

DOI:  

• The importance of publisher C. W. Daniel in helping relaunch Lawrence's literary career after the First World War

• Previously unknown information about planned editions of Lawrence's work

• Evidence of writing projects and publishing plans that have not previously been documented

• New details about the professional relationship between Lawrence and Daniel – indeed it is the only known letter we have from Lawrence to Daniel

• The extent of connections between prominent literary figures and Britain's anti-war and radical cultural networks

Crucial figure in Lawrence's comeback

D. H. Lawrence is today best known as the author of Lady Chatterley's Lover, Sons and Lovers and Women in Love. However, the newly discovered letter highlights the challenges he faced in the years before he became one of Britain's most influential twentieth-century writers.

After The Rainbow was prosecuted for obscenity in 1915 and withdrawn from circulation, Lawrence's literary career suffered a major setback. The discovery sees Lawrence acknowledging that Daniel played a far more important role in helping the writer rebuild his reputation and publishing career than has previously been recognised.

Dr Booth explained that Daniel published Lawrence's first prose book in nearly four years. It helped provide a route back into print and a £15 advance against royalties – a significant sum of money in those days.

What the researchers say

"The letter shows how important Daniel was to Lawrence's post-war relaunch after the suppression of The Rainbow in 1915, being ordered out of Cornwall under the Defence of the Realm Act in 1917 and wartime poverty," said Dr Howard Booth.

Dr Booth is currently completing a book on Lawrence and politics, and plans to explore the significance of the letter in further detail.

Revealing Britain's overlooked anti-war literary networks

Beyond its significance for Lawrence scholarship, the discovery also provides a new perspective on the networks of writers, publishers and activists involved in Britain's anti-war culture during and immediately after the First World War.

Daniel was a prominent pacifist and radical publisher whose activities brought him into conflict with authorities during the war. His archive offers a unique window into the literary and political communities that challenged mainstream attitudes towards war and conscientious objection.

Dr Hanson said: "It's exciting to have discovered it, and it shows the extent not only of C. W. Daniel's contacts and clients but also of the network of well-known writers contributing to Britain's radical anti-war culture, which is often depicted as marginal."

Why this matters

The discovery demonstrates the continuing value of archival research in uncovering new evidence about major literary figures.

More than ninety years after Lawrence's death, previously unknown documents are still emerging that can reshape our understanding of his life, work and professional relationships.

The letter also offers fresh evidence of how radical publishers and anti-war campaigners helped sustain literary culture during a turbulent period in British history, revealing connections that have remained hidden for more than a century.

• Temporary accommodation has existed in different forms for nearly two centuries

• Many of the problems seen today have deep historical roots

• Poor conditions, lengthy stays and placements away from communities have been repeated over time

• Fragmented responsibility has consistently made accountability difficult

• People living in temporary accommodation have often had limited opportunities to challenge poor conditions or unfair decisions

• Temporary accommodation has frequently operated outside the standards expected of other forms of housing

• A new enforceable framework is needed to ensure temporary accommodation is short, safe and healthy

A crisis with deep historical roots

The report identifies a long-running pattern in which certain groups have faced greater barriers to support than others, rooted in ideas about who is considered ‘deserving’ of assistance.

It argues that while major reforms have changed the legal framework around homelessness, longstanding patterns of exclusion, unequal treatment and poor-quality accommodation have repeatedly reappeared in different forms.

The research also highlights how fragmented responsibilities across government departments, local authorities and providers have often made it difficult to identify poor practice, enforce standards or learn from successful approaches.

Lessons from nearly 200 years of history

The report calls for three major reforms:

• Make unequal harms visible - better monitoring is needed to understand who is being placed where, in what conditions and for how long, enabling policymakers to identify and address unequal outcomes.

• End fragmentation - temporary accommodation requires clearer statutory coordination, stronger oversight and greater accountability across the system.

• Create an enforceable framework - temporary accommodation should be subject to baseline national standards, backed by meaningful enforcement.

Better temporary accommodation is possible

The report also identifies examples showing that better temporary accommodation can be delivered when there is political will and investment.

One example is the 1944 Temporary Housing Programme, which funded more than 150,000 prefabricated bungalows following the Second World War. Designed with comfort, privacy and family life in mind, the programme demonstrated that temporary accommodation could provide safe and dignified housing rather than merely emergency shelter.

What the researchers say

"Many of the problems experienced by people living in temporary accommodation today have appeared again and again for nearly two centuries,” said Dr Jessica Field. “What emerges from this research is a story of recurring patterns rather than isolated failures - poor conditions, long stays, family disruption and displacement from communities have persisted across very different political and policy contexts. Understanding how these problems developed helps us see why piecemeal reforms have often struggled to deliver lasting change.”

"Temporary accommodation may seem like a current crisis, but it has been part of our lives for nearly 200 years - yet the experience for many people living in temporary accommodation today remains painfully similar to what it was in the nineteenth century,” said Simon Gale, Chief Executive of Justlife.

"Poor conditions, long stays, people being moved away from their communities, and families left in uncertainty are not new problems. Lifelines shows they are part of a much longer pattern. That matters because we cannot keep responding to temporary accommodation as if each problem is new, isolated or unavoidable.”

"If we are serious about ending the harm caused by temporary accommodation, we need a clear national framework, proper standards, stronger accountability and a housing policy that stops temporary solutions becoming long-term realities."

Publication

was authored by Dr Jessica Field and published by Justlife.

The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness was established to champion journalism that sheds light on one of Britain’s most enduring social challenges. The prize recognises reporting that is person-centred, data-driven or policy-focused.

Chair of judges Michael Gove said: “The Orwell Prize attracts some of the most powerful and most exciting journalism being produced in Britain today. Homelessness is a huge social evil, but it has also inspired some great reporting and fantastic analysis. It has been a joy to spend time both with this work and with my fellow judges, who have brought a huge amount of passion and authority to the business of sifting some brilliant entries.”

The Orwell Foundation, which runs the awards, promotes the values associated with George Orwell’s writing, including integrity, courage and fidelity to truth.

The winners of the 2026 Orwell Prizes will be announced on 25 June at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London.

Hao’s career includes reporting for leading global publications and producing widely respected analysis of artificial intelligence systems and their societal implications. She is also known for her work as a podcast host and commentator, bringing complex technical and political issues to wider audiences with clarity and nuance.

Her visit comes at a time of intense global debate around AI governance, safety and economic impact. As governments and industries grapple with regulation and deployment, events such as this provide a vital forum for informed public discussion.

The lecture will take place at 5.30pm in Lecture theatre G.003 of Alliance Manchester Business School. Tickets are available via , and early booking is encouraged due to anticipated high demand.

A Lego-style Iranian military commander : “Our inbox is flooded with Americans saying they don’t watch the news. They listen to our songs instead since your media is full of sh*t.”

This is the opening line of an AI-generated video which is part of Iran’s meme campaign – built around Lego-style animation and rap soundtracks, which have online. The line captures the strange reality of contemporary politics: news is often most effectively disseminated not through journalism but humour, memes and entertainment.

Since late February, pro-Iranian media groups – most notably, the – have flooded social media with AI-generated video content mocking Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu and US foreign policy. It has been dubbed – but the sophistication is striking.

These videos but do not look or feel like state propaganda – despite the spokesperson for Explosive Media admitting to the BBC that the . They capture the internet zeitgeist: fast, funny, visually familiar and designed for virality.

Trojan horses

The success of these memes lies in their audience strategy. They do not target people actively seeking news. Instead, they mimic the language of everyday internet culture to reach those who are not following events in the Middle East at all.

Humour is the mechanism they use to get reach. These videos function as Trojan horses, drawing viewers in with recognisable imagery, references and music – while communicating a narrative about American overreach, dysfunction and corruption.

As , a US-based expert in disinformation, notes, this kind of content reaches “politically uninvested people who otherwise wouldn’t have engaged with war-related content”.

The key insight here is not geopolitics but audiences. Conventional political communication, including press conferences, policy statements and traditional news coverage, reaches people who are already paying attention. These AI meme videos are designed to reach everyone else: the millions of people whose understanding of international conflict extends no further than what happens to appear in their social media feed.

Humour is the primary mechanism these videos have harnessed to conquer the social media algorithms. The joke is not the message – it is the delivery system. By packaging geopolitical arguments inside “diss tracks”, pop culture references and shareable clips, these videos communicate political ideas before audiences have even registered they are consuming political content.

What makes audiences receptive to ‘slopaganda’?

But this raises a deeper question. Why are people so receptive to receiving political information in this form? The answer is that they have been primed for it.

For two decades, a generation of Americans – and increasingly British and European viewers – have learned to process political news through satire. Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show became, for many younger viewers, a than the nightly news.

The likes of Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel also built enormous audiences by making politics funny, accessible and emotionally engaging in ways that conventional journalism often failed to do. The implicit message, repeated nightly, was that humour was not merely a gloss on political commentary. It was a .

This was largely a progressive phenomenon. The targets were politicians and large institutions, both government and private sector – and the satirists positioned themselves as holding power to account. But this created an expectation that , and that comedy is a legitimate vehicle for political understanding.

Iran is copying populist strategy

Since 2008, many populists have recognised the in their election campaigns – none more so than Trump. His campaign appearances on comedy podcasts, his and stunts, and his endless memes are not distractions from his political strategy – they are his political strategy.

Trump reached, and mobilised, millions of who had long since stopped engaging with political news in any traditional form.

Iran has been paying attention. The American scholar of propaganda has that Iran is now “using popular culture against the No.1 pop culture country, the United States”.

The Lego aesthetic, the rap beats, the 1980s pop covers, the selection of jokes are not random choices. They demonstrate a precise calibration of what can effectively reach online audiences in the western attention economy.

The result is content that is not immediately visible as foreign propaganda, and instead looks like entertainment. For audiences already accustomed to learning about politics through comedy, the distinction barely registers.

There is a profound irony here. The cultural conditions that produced shows like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight – the erosion of trust in mainstream political communication and the demand for authenticity and humour over formal rhetoric – have produced a media environment in which a foreign state can distribute propaganda to millions of Americans, and have it feel indistinguishable from domestic entertainment.

This is not to say that late-night satire and Iranian AI content is equivalent. But they are operating in the same media ecosystem – one in which humour has become a primary method of political communication.

The most unsettling thing about what is happening right now is what this means for our information environment.

If propaganda is indistinguishable from satire, and satire accumulates millions of views while news does not, the line between political entertainment and political persuasion has seemingly collapsed. And the people most affected are those who think they are not following the war at all.

, Early Career Researcher, Religions and Theology Department
This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

Key findings

• A grammar-based authorship analysis method matched or exceeded leading AI systems across most test datasets
• The approach outperformed several neural network-based authorship verification models
• Researchers tested the method across 12 real-world writing datasets including emails, forums and reviews
• The system is more transparent than many AI models because it shows which grammatical patterns informed decisions
• Researchers say the findings challenge assumptions that more complex AI always produces better results

What did the study find?

Researchers found that a relatively simple, linguistically grounded method can perform as well as - and in some cases better than - complex artificial intelligence systems in identifying authorship.

The study suggests that increasingly sophisticated AI is not always necessary for high-performing writing analysis, particularly when methods are designed around established principles of how language works.

How does the LambdaG method work?

The method, called LambdaG, analyses patterns in grammar rather than relying on large-scale machine learning models.

It builds a statistical profile of how an individual writes by measuring features such as function word usage (words like it, of and the), sentence structure, punctuation patterns and other grammatical habits.

The researchers say these features create a distinctive behavioural signature for each writer.

Why is this different from AI-based authorship analysis?

Many current authorship verification systems rely on complex AI models trained on vast datasets. While effective, these systems can be difficult to interpret, computationally expensive and hard to explain in high-stakes settings such as legal investigations. By contrast, LambdaG provides a transparent explanation of which grammatical features influenced its conclusions.

How accurate was the method?

Researchers tested LambdaG across 12 datasets designed to reflect real-world writing scenarios, including emails, online forum posts and consumer reviews.

In most cases, the method achieved higher accuracy than several established authorship verification systems, including neural network-based approaches.

Why does grammar reveal authorship?

The researchers argue that grammar acts as a behavioural signature, like how we write our signature or how we walk.

Over time, individuals develop unconscious habits in how they structure sentences and use language. These habits create identifiable linguistic patterns that can distinguish one writer from another.

What are the potential applications?

The researchers say the method could support work in:

• Forensic linguistics
• Criminal investigations
• Online abuse detection
• Academic integrity monitoring

The study was published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.

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