An update on Mitigating Circumstances and Extensions Project

20 Mar 2026

Our Mitigating Circumstances and Extensions project is all about creating a new and improved system that works for students, supporting our strategy to 2035. We have been collaborating with teams across the University updating the existing policy so processes are more consistent for our students and colleagues.

Through this work, we have identified there are additional activities that are needed for us to deliver a system that supports all students, including those studying on non-standard pathways. Manchester 2035 outlines key priority activities, for example Future Foundations is delivering our new People and Finance system that will improve the quality of our data and standardise our processes. To enable us to successfully deliver these activities, we need to carefully manage capacity and protect staff workload. As a result, we have confirmed that we will not be able to deliver the planned integrations with student data by September 2026. These integrations are critical, and without them many of the features and benefits our users need won't be achievable.

We have taken the decision to pause the delivery of a new system for Mitigating Circumstances and Extensions. This means that a new system will not be launching in September 2026. We recognise that this may be disappointing, however, it is important that when we deliver the system it genuinely improves the experience for students and colleagues. We need this system to be the best it can be and now is not the right time for us to achieve that.

What will happen next?

The project is not stopping. We remain fully committed to delivering a new system and a consistent streamlined process for students and colleagues. The work we have already done together will be critical in helping us take the design and implementation of the right solution forward.

Designing for the people at the centre

We are pausing delivery of the new system until we are confident it will deliver the benefits our users need, in line with the Manchester 2035 delivery handbook. We will now replan to ensure that we deliver a system that can effectively integrate with our IT systems and provides a quicker, simpler and easier experience for both colleagues and students.

We’ll continue to work collaboratively with colleagues and students over the next few months to make sure that we deliver the benefits our users need.