Research and Impact @ Manchester (January 2026)
07 Jan 2026
A message from Colette Fagan, Vice-President for Research
Dear colleagues,
A warm welcome to the new year – and to our research security special edition of Research & Impact @ Manchester.
I hope you all had a good, well-deserved break and are starting 2026 refreshed and ready for what the year brings, including Manchester 2035, now in its implementation stage. As Duncan says, getting to this point has been energising – a shared effort from start to finish. Now comes the exciting part – we get to bring it to life. Find out how in Duncan’s Viewpoint blog: From strategy to delivery.
As I said, this is our research security special. Today, we launch our new Research Security Hub to help you carry out your work safely and easily here at Manchester.
The Hub contains all the information and guidance you need, as did the one it replaces, but with a new feature – flowcharts that help you navigate your personal journeys, with clickable links that take you direct to the teams and resources you need.
I would like to reassure you that our approach to international engagement is, as always, academically driven, allowing collaborations to flourish. Collaboration is a central tenet of our Manchester 2035 strategy as we seek to solve global challenges. It’s also a great way to work – meeting fascinating colleagues and carrying out fulfilling, impactful research.
At the same time, we are facing a complex international environment and therefore new and changing potential risks. It is essential we carry out our work while understanding and addressing this complex international environment.
With this Hub and all the teams behind it, we are here to support you and ensure your academic freedom as you continue to solve global problems in a safe and secure environment.
It would be good to know your views on this. What experiences have you had and do you have any advice for colleagues? And how are we doing – is there any other way we can improve our support? You can tell us by commenting on Nalin Thakkar’s Viewpoint blog or emailing: regulatory.compliance@manchester.ac.uk.
You can get the full details in our Research security section below.
Delivering Manchester 2035
At the end of last year, we launched our Manchester 2035 delivery handbook, explaining how we plan to deliver our ten-year strategy to become a great civic university for the 21st century university.
As Duncan said, the point of our strategy is not to predict the future, but to position ourselves to succeed under any scenario. This is a framework for the future, not a fixed route – and we’ll have to adapt and learn as we go. But we now have a clear direction of travel and the means to prioritise our work and help us tell our story with confidence and clarity.
The strategy was created by 12,000 of us over a 12-month period – something we should be proud of. So please take a look at the handbook as we start the next year of our exciting future.
There’s a new opportunity for anyone seeking to become a leading light of one of the leaps: becoming a powerhouse of innovation. We are recruiting a new CEO for Unit M, which aims to maximise the impact of our world-class research in a different way. It’s a ‘disruption unit’ that experiments, makes mistakes and – crucially – involves more people than have previously been included in the process and benefits of innovation. To find out more about the role and apply, visit: Unit M CEO.
You can also get involved in Challenge Accepted, our landmark £400m global fundraising and volunteering campaign to accelerate Manchester 2035. This will mobilise more than half a million global alumni, supporters, colleagues and students and drive transformative change across research, student support, innovation and culture and back bold solutions to the world's most pressing problems.
Professor of Global Development, Nicky Banks – whose career was “kickstarted by philanthropy” thanks to the Rory and Elizabeth Brooks Foundation – spoke beautifully at last month’s townhall when she said, “One family’s gift becomes another person’s generosity… The gift isn’t the end; it’s the beginning of something.”
More to celebrate
In other positive news, ten of our colleagues have been named among top one percent of global influential researchers. In rankings released by Clarivate, Highly Cited Researchers demonstrate significant and broad influence across their fields of research and have authored multiple ‘Highly Cited’ papers. These papers proudly rank in the top one percent by citations for their field and publication year in the Web of Science over the past eleven years.
We retained our global top 10 spot for sustainability in the QS Rankings and remain the only university in the world to feature in the top 10 of both the QS Sustainability Rankings and the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings.
We and our four fellow Greater Manchester universities launched a refreshed set of civic priorities, reaffirming our collective commitment to improving lives across the city-region. Developed in collaboration with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and shaped by the Citizens’ Panel, the new priorities ensure the universities’ civic mission remains grounded in the needs of residents and supports Greater Manchester’s vision of becoming ‘a thriving city region where everyone can live a good life’.
And we celebrate four colleagues recognised in the King’s New Year Honours – warmest congratulations to Professors Sarah Sharples, Fiona Rayment, Martin Humphries and Tony Redmond OBE.
Finally
We have two conferences coming up – our Research Staff Conference on Thursday, 29 January and our Research Communications Conference on Wednesday, 4 March. There are more details below – it would be great to see some of you in person at those events.
So, a good start to a busy year – welcome back!
Colette