Launching the University’s strategy – From Manchester for the world

17 Oct 2025

From Manchester for the world is our strategy to 2035 – shaped by colleagues, students and partners.

Launched at a special event on Wednesday, From Manchester for the world has been shaped by colleagues, students and partners over 12 months of collaboration, and it reflects the best of Manchester. Thanks to all of you who contributed ideas and challenges across townhalls, workshops, our Ideas Lab and online spaces.

During phase one our community thought big – pitching and debating ideas through workshops and online sessions. In phase two we brought together more than 120 members of our community in sprint groups – leaders, subject matter experts and the Students’ Union Executive Officers – to turn those early ideas into proposals that we put back out to our community via the in-person and online Ideas Lab in April 2024 for further input. Overall, more than 12,000 colleagues, students, alumni and partners were involved.

Our University community made clear we are ready to think bigger and do things differently – but we also need to get the fundamentals right. The decision to structure our strategy around ‘foundations’ and ‘leaps’ came directly from the ideas and themes raised by our community in the consultation.

Our foundations are the enduring strengths we must get right, the core commitments our community believes must be true in any future. Our leaps are the bold choices where we will go further and faster, setting a new trajectory for the kind of university our future demands.

Our ‘North Star’ is to be a great civic university for the 21st century, creating knowledge for the public good, locally and globally.

From Manchester for the world is a framework for the future, not a fixed route, setting our ambition for 2035. It focuses on the areas where we can make the biggest difference, while opening up future possibilities; providing direction whilst empowering you to decide and act.

As we move towards the implementation phase commencing in January 2026, we will share a delivery handbook that sets out the principles and approaches for how we prioritise, sequence, measure activities and work together as one university.

In the meantime, we are encouraging all colleagues to explore the strategy with your teams and ask what is the one thing you will do differently because of our new strategy to 2035?

If you didn’t attend the launch in-person or online, you can watch a recording on YouTube.