The University of Manchester

 www.manchester.ac.uk
The University of Manchester, formed in 2004 by bringing together The Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST, is Britain’s first chartered university of the 21st century. The new institution is the largest single-site higher education institution in the country, offering students a greater choice of degree programmes and options, and even better facilities and support services.

The University’s vision for the future is the creation of a 21st century institution that will become an international research powerhouse and a favoured destination for the best students, teachers, researchers and scholars in the world. A landmark document, Towards Manchester 2015, sets out the dynamic plan for making The University of Manchester one of the top 25 universities in the world by that date.

The School of Environment and Development
www.sed.manchester.ac.uk
EcoCities is being led by the School of Environment and Development, which represents one of the most innovative academic structures in the University. It encompasses the disciplines of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Geography, and the subjects represented within the Institute for Development Policy and Management.

The School is unique in its capacity to move between academic rigour and applied approaches to social-economic-environmental interactions, giving its activities great contemporary national and international relevance for decision-makers.

Research Centres
www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/research/centres
The School of Environment and Development hosts several externally funded Research Centres, a number of which are going to be working on EcoCities related projects. These include:

Manchester Architecture Research Centre (MARC)
www.manchester.ac.uk/marc
MARC is developing a research agenda that aims at critically understanding the co-evolution of design and development strategies and the socio-economic processes shaping cities. MARC Research encompasses urban design, urban development, ecological and landscape design and the conservation and management of historic environments. Collectively, MARC is developing and applying insights from a range of disciplines to develop socio-technical perspectives on climate and urban change.

Centre for Urban and Regional Ecology (CURE)
www.manchester.ac.uk/cure
CURE’s research relates to the academic agendas of sustainability, the re-building of environmental capital, and the organisation and activity of complex communities (both natural and human). CURE has played a lead role in national studies assessing predictions of climate change in the UK and recommending steps which can be taken to adapt to rising temperatures while mitigating the role of urban environments in accelerating future climate change.

Global Urban Research Centre (GURC)
www.manchester.ac.uk/gurc
GURC is a multidisciplinary centre researching global urbanization, poverty, inequality and exclusion. Their research agenda will focus on the challenges of unprecedented urbanization, and in particular how this exacerbates environmental pressures.

Brooks World Poverty Institute (BWPI)
www.manchester.ac.uk/bwpi
The Brooks World Poverty Institute is a multidisciplinary centre of global excellence researching poverty, poverty reduction, inequality and growth in both the developed and developing worlds. The BWPI is a catalyst for better understanding why people are poor, what keeps them trapped in poverty and what can be done to help them - drawing upon the very best international practice in research and policy making.

More information
If you would like to find out more about the University of Manchester’s involvement in EcoCities please contact:

Darien Rozentals
EcoCities / MARC Administrator
School of Environment and Development
University of Manchester
Darien.Rozentals@manchester.ac.uk