Our research and innovation is shaping the future of our people, our city Manchester, our country and the world. It is shaping our students’ learning through our programmes, our collaborating researchers and innovators across our region, and our industry partners. If you’re reading this then our research and innovation has the potential to shape you. 

How we’re responding to challenges 

We’re asking fundamental questions about nature and our world, and exploring the answers that are discovered. We are studying the largest objects in the universe through to the smallest particles known to science. Our innovation harnesses the talent of our most creative scientists and engineers to address global challenges facing humanity and to deliver technologies of the future. 

Here you can discover our Faculty challenge areas of artificial intelligence, health, materials, net-zero, quantum and digital. Find out about our Schools and their Departments, and our research institutes that provide a creative, ambitious and supportive environment in which researchers at every stage of their careers can develop and thrive as leaders in their chosen field. Find out how our leading research is delivering transformative innovation, and supporting interdisciplinary teams to deliver our research priorities and beyond. 

Our heritage 

Our heritage and history inspire us but do not define us. It was here that Ernest Rutherford began his work on 'splitting of the atom', that Tom Kilburn and FC Williams built the world's first electronic stored-program computer - The Baby - and that Alan Turing laid the foundations for artificial intelligence. It was here that Bernard Lovell built the first-ever steerable radio telescope, and in 2010 Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for isolating the 'wonder material' graphene – which is now being used in real-world applications. We are the birthplace of chemical engineering and it is here that the REF 2021 results showed that we are an international research and innovation powerhouse. 

What’s next? 

As we look ahead we are proactively seeking to become carbon net-zero by 2038, to be recognised by staff, students, alumni and our partners as an inclusive organisation, and to ensure we invest in our people and in maintaining our world-class research environment. This will enable us to keep delivering world-changing research, teaching and innovation to bring transformative benefit to society and the environment. 

It is here that you too can join us to study, research, innovate and contribute to our story which will become part of your future. 

Our Schools

• School of Engineering
• School of Natural Sciences

Our Institutes

• bp-ICAM
• Dalton Nuclear Institute
• Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre
• Henry Royce Institute
• Manchester Environmental Research Institute
• Manchester Institute of Biotechnology
• National Graphene Institute
• Photon Science Institute
• The University of Manchester at Harwell
• Thomas Ashton Institute for Risk and Regulatory Research