Information about University Of Manchester

The University of Manchester
Motto	Cognitio, sapientia, hvmanitas (Knowledge, wisdom, humanity)
Established	2004 by the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester (established 1851) and UMIST (established 1824)
Chancellor	Anna Ford and Sir Terry Leahy
Vice-Chancellor	Prof Alan Gilbert
Staff	10,407
Students	40,420[1]
Undergraduates	29,350<ref name="HESA" />
Postgraduates	11,075<ref name="HESA" />
Location	Manchester, England
Campus	Urban and Suburban
Colours	Purple, Blue and Gold[2]
Affiliations	Russell Group, EUA, N8 Group, NWUA, Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), Association of Commonwealth Universities
Website	[1]

The University of Manchester is a university located in Manchester, England. With over 40,000 students studying 500 academic programmes, more than 10,000 staff and an annual income of nearly £600 million it is the largest single-site University in the United Kingdom and receives more applications from prospective students than any other university in the country, with more than 60,000 applications for undergraduate courses alone. According to the The Sunday Times, "Manchester has a formidable reputation spanning most disciplines, but most notably in the life sciences, engineering, humanities, economics, sociology and the social sciences".^[3]

The present University was formed in 2004 by the dissolution of the Victoria University of Manchester (which was commonly known as the University of Manchester) and UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) and the subsequent formation of a single institution. The University of Manchester is a member of the Russell Group and was named University of the Year 2006. This followed the awarding by the inaugural Times Higher Education Supplement's University of the Year prize in 2005.^[4]

History

Main articles: UMIST and Victoria University of Manchester

While the present University was formed in 2004, its constituent parts date from as early as 1824. The University's history is closely linked to Manchester's emergence as the world's first industrial city. John Dalton together with Manchester businessmen and industrialists established the Mechanics' Institute (later to become UMIST) in 1824 to ensure that workers could learn the basic principles of science. Similarly, John Owens, a Manchester textile merchant, left a bequest of £96,942 in 1851 for the purpose of founding a college for the education of males on non-sectarian lines. Owens College (to become the Victoria University of Manchester) was established and granted a Royal Charter in 1880 to become England's first civic university. It was initially housed in a building, complete with Adams staircase, on the corner of Quay Street and Byron Street which had been the home of the philanthropist Richard Cobden, and subsequently was to house Manchester County Court.

By 1905 the two institutions were a large and active force in the area, with the Mechanics' Institute, the forerunner of the modern UMIST, forming a Faculty of Technology and working alongside the Victoria University of Manchester. Before the merger, the Universities between them counted 23 Nobel Prize winners amongst their former staff and students. Manchester has traditionally been particularly strong in the sciences, with the nuclear nature of the atom being discovered at Manchester, and the world's first programmable electronic computer coming into being in the city. Famous scientists associated with the university including the physicists John Dalton, Niels Bohr, Ernest Rutherford, James Chadwick, Arthur Schuster, Hans Geiger, Ernest Marsden and Balfour Stewart. However, the university has also contributed in many other fields, and the mathematicians Paul Erdős and Alan Turing, the author Anthony Burgess, philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Alasdair MacIntyre, the Pritzker Prize and RIBA Stirling Prize winning architect Norman Foster and the composer Peter Maxwell Davies all attended, or worked in, Manchester. Well-known figures among the current academic staff include author Martin Amis, computer scientist Steve Furber, literary critic Terry Eagleton.

University today

The newly merged University of Manchester was officially launched on 22 October 2004 when the Queen handed over the Royal Charter. It has the largest number of full time students in the UK, unless the University of London is counted as a single university. It teaches more academic subjects than any other British University. The President and Vice-Chancellor of the new University is Alan Gilbert, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne. One of the stated ambitions of the newly combined university is to 'establish it by 2015 among the 25 strongest research universities in the world on commonly accepted criteria of research excellence and performance'.^[5]

The Times Higher World University Rankings 2006 ranked Manchester 6th best university in the UK, 11th in Europe and 40th in the world.^[6] This followed the awarding by the inaugural Times Higher Supplement's University of the Year prize in 2005.^[7] The Academic Ranking of World Universities 2007 published by the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranked Manchester 5th in the UK, 9th in Europe and 48th in the world.^[8] According to High Fliers Research Limited's survey, 'The Graduate Market in 2007', University of Manchester students are being targeted by more top recruiters for 2007 graduate vacancies than any other UK university students.^[9]

Manchester has the largest total income of all UK universities, standing at £590 million as of 2005^[10] but its deficit for the 2005/6 financial year stands at £20.6 million.^[11]. Its research income of £200 million is the fifth largest of any university in the country. Despite its size The University of Manchester is divided into only four faculties, each sub-divided into schools:

• Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences consisting of the Schools of Medicine; Dentistry; Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work; Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; and Psychological Sciences.
• Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences consisting of the Schools of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science; Chemistry; Computer Science; Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Science; Physics and Astronomy; Electrical & Electronic Engineering; Materials; Mathematics; and Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering.
• Faculty of Humanities includes the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures (a rather catchall title incorporating Archaeology; Art History; Classics and Ancient History; Drama; English and American Studies; History; Music; and Religions and Theology). The other Schools are Education; Environment and Development; Architecture; Informatics (formed from the UMIST Department of Computation); Languages, Linguistics and Cultures; Law; Social Sciences and the Manchester Business School.
• Faculty of Life Sciences unusually consisting of a single school.

Campus and facilities

The Main Campus of the University consists of the roughly adjoining sites of the former UMIST campus, near Sackville Street, and the former main campus of the Victoria University of Manchester, in the vicinity of Oxford Road. The terms North Campus and South Campus (respectively) are sometimes used when making a distinction between the former sites, though the official status of these terms is unclear, and are not universally used. In addition there are a number of other university buildings located throughout the city, and throughout the further region, such as One Central Park and Jodrell Bank Observatory, the latter in the nearby county of Cheshire. The former is a collaboration between Manchester University and other partners in the region which offers office space to accommodate new start-up firms as well as venues for conferences and workshops.^[12]

Major projects

Following the merger, the University embarked on a £600 million programme of capital investment, to deliver eight new buildings and 15 major refurbishment projects by 2010, partly financed by an asset sale ^[13]. These include:

• £60 m Flagship Student Services and Nursing building
• £56 m Alan Turing Building: housing Mathematics, the Photon Sciences Institute and the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics.
• £50 m Life Sciences Research Building
• £38 m Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre (MIB)
• £33 m Life Sciences and Medical and Human Sciences Building
• £31 m Humanities Building - now officially called the "Arthur Lewis Building"
• £20 m Wolfson Molecular Imaging Centre (WMIC)
• £18 m Re-location of School of Pharmacy
• £17 m John Rylands Library, Deansgate
• £13 m Chemistry Building
• £10 m Functional Biology Building

John Rylands University Library

Main article: John Rylands University Library

The University's library, the John Rylands University Library, is the largest non-legal deposit library in the UK, as well as being the country's third-largest academic library after those of Oxford and Cambridge.^[14] The oldest part of the library, founded in memory of John Rylands by his wife Enriqueta Augustina Rylands as an independent institution, is situated in a Victorian Gothic building on Deansgate, Manchester city centre. This site houses an important collection of historic books and manuscripts, including the oldest extant New Testament document, Rylands Library Papyrus P52, the so-called St John's fragment. The Deansgate site has recently reopened to the public, following major improvements and renovations, including the construction of the pitched roof originally intended.

Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics

Main article: Jodrell Bank Observatory

The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics is a combination of the astronomical academic staff, situated in Manchester, and the Jodrell Bank Observatory near Goostrey, about ten miles (16 km) west of Macclesfield. The observatory boasts the third largest fully-movable radio telescope in the world, the Lovell Telescope, constructed in the 1950s. It has played an important role in the research of quasars, pulsars and gravitational lenses, and has played a role in confirming Einstein's theory of General Relativity.

Manchester Museum

Main article: Manchester Museum

The Manchester Museum provides access to about six million items sourced from around the world. Collections include butterflies and carvings from India, birds and bark-cloth from the Pacific, live frogs and ancient pottery from America, fossils and native art from Australia, mammals and ancient Egyptian craftsmanship from Africa, plants, coins and minerals from Europe, art from past civilisations of the Mediterranean, and beetles, armour and archery from Asia. The museum recently acquired a cast of a fossilised Tyrannosaurus rex called "Stan", which was unveiled on 4 November 2004.

Whitworth Art Gallery

Main article: Whitworth Art Gallery

The Whitworth Art Gallery is home to collections of internationally famous British watercolours, textiles and wallpapers, as well as modern and historic prints, drawings, paintings and sculpture. A programme of temporary exhibitions runs throughout the year, with the Mezzanine Court serving as a venue for showing sculpture.

Contact Theatre

Main article: Contact Theatre

The University's Contact Theatre mostly stages live performances of modern works and participatory work for younger audiences. It is housed in a fortress-style building on the Oxford Road, with a unique energy-efficient system, using its high towers. The interior houses three performance spaces, a lounge bar and "Hot Air", a reactive public artwork, in the foyer space.

Manchester Conference Centre

Main article: Manchester Conference Centre

Owned and operated by the University, Manchester Conference Centre on Sackville Street offers conference facilities in its two theatres (seating up to 300) and 19 seminar rooms.

Old Quadrangle

The buildings around the old quadrangle date from the time of Owens College, and were designed in a Gothic style by Alfred Waterhouse (and his son Paul Waterhouse). Today, the museum continues to occupy one side (including the tower) and the grand setting of Whitworth Hall is used for the conferment of degrees. The old Christie Library now houses Christie's Bistro, and the remainder of the buildings are used by administrative departments.

Chancellors Hotel and Conference Centre

Main article: Chancellors Hotel & Conference Centre

Formerly named The Firs, the original house was built in 1850 for Sir Joseph Whitworth, by Edward Walters, who was also responsible for Manchester’s Free Trade Hall and Strangeways Prison. Whitworth used the Firs mainly as a social, political and business base, entertaining radicals of the age such as John Bright, Richard Cobden, William Forster and T.H. Huxley at the time of the Reform Bill of 1867. Whitworth, credited with raising the art of machine-tool building to a previously-unknown level, supported the new Mechanics Institute in Manchester – the birthplace of UMIST - and helped to found the Manchester School of Design. In 1882, the Firs was leased to C.P. Scott, Editor of the Manchester Guardian. After Scott's death the house became the property of Owens College, and was the Vice-Chancellor's residence until 1991. The old house now forms the western wing of Chancellors Hotel & Conference Centre at the University. The newer eastern wing houses the circular Flowers Theatre, six individual conference rooms and the majority of the 75 hotel bedrooms.

Residential campuses

Prior to merging, the two former universities had for some time been sharing their residential facilities.

The North Campus lies on the previous UMIST Campus, comprising five halls of residence central to the Sackville Street building (Weston, Lambert, Fairfield, Chandos, Wright Robinson), and several other halls within a 5-15 minute walk away, such as the Grosvenor group of halls and Whitworth Park.

The Fallowfield Campus, situated 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the main university campus (the South Campus), is the largest of the university's residential campuses. The Owens Park tower lies at the centre of it, with Oak House being the other main hall of residence. Woolton Hall is also present on Fallowfield campus next to Oak house. Allen Hall is a traditional hall situated nearby rather less classic Ashburne Hall. Richmond Park is a relatively recent addition to the campus.

Victoria Park Campus, situated between Fallowfield and the South Campus, just off Rusholme, comprises several houses of residence. Among these are St Anselm Hall with Canterbury Court, Dalton-Ellis Hall (with Pankhurst Court), Hulme Hall (including Burkhardt House), St Gabriel's Hall and Opal Gardens Hall.

The University also has an additional residential campus some distance away in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, known as Hardy Farm.

Clubs and societies

There are many different clubs and societies operating within the University of Manchester. Common areas include sports, hobbies, politics and religion. The University of Manchester website details the various societies in far greater depth than is present below. There are several fairs during the freshers period in which various clubs and societies promote themselves.

Today the university can boast more than 80 health and fitness classes every whilst over 3000 students are members of the 42 various Athlethic Union Clubs. Generally, the sports societies in Manchester vary widely in their level and scope. Many of the more popular sports have several university teams as well as departmental teams which may be placed in a league against other teams from different departments/halls of residence within the university. Common teams include: Hockey, Rugby, Football, Basketball, Netball and Cricket. The Manchester Aquatics Centre, the swimming pool used for the Manchester Commonwealth Games is also on the campus.

Every year elite sportsmen and sportswomen at the university are selected for membership of the XXI Club, a society that was formed in 1932 and exists to promote sporting excellence at the university. Most members have gained a Full Maroon for representing The University and many have excelled at a British Universities or National level.

Hobbies has been used as an umbrella term to cover the huge range of other clubs and societies on offer. These vary hugely between areas like Languages, Nationalities, Wargames, Artsbased e.g. Anime and many more. If a particular society does not exist there is usually a mechanism by which it can be created.

There is a wide range of religious based societies and places of worship within the University. A religions fair is also held, where information is distributed about the different societies. There are large Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Bahá'í societies which hold regular events and meetings.

The university has also a strong Drama tradition and past students include Meera Syal, Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall and Ben Elton. The Drama Society holds a yearly drama festival, involving 13 plays in five theatres and over 120 students, as well as coordinating several independent student run productions. The Fringe Society in 2006 took twelve plays and over 70 students to the Edinburgh Fringe festival under the company name "Johnny Miller Presents". The company was awarded a ThreeWeeks Editors' Award, which honours the most talked about and exciting people and companies at the festival.^[15]

The University of Manchester Students' Union

The University of Manchester Students' Union is the representative body of students at the University of Manchester. There are now two Union buildings - the Steve Biko building inherited from the Victoria University of Manchester, and the Barnes Wallis building from UMIST. Manchester Academy, the Union's music venue, hosts bands most nights of the week. The student newspaper is called Student Direct. The radio station, Fuse FM, broadcasts twice-yearly on both FM and also over the internet.

NHS hospitals

The University of Manchester's medical school is one of the largest in Europe, with over 400 medical students being trained in each of the clinical years and over 350 students in the pre-clinical/phase 1 years. Approximately 110 students who have completed pre-clinical training at the Bute Medical School (University of St Andrews) join the third year of the undergraduate medical programme each year.

The University's Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences has links with a large number of NHS hospitals in the north west of England and maintains presences in its four base hospitals: Manchester Royal Infirmary (located at the southern end of the main university campus on Oxford Road), Wythenshawe Hospitals, Salford's Hope Hospital and the Royal Preston Hospital. All are used for clinical medical training for doctors and nurses.

The School of Pharmacy[3] at Manchester University also benefits from the University's links with the Manchester Royal Infirmary, Wythenshawe Hospitals and Salford's Hope hospital. All of the undergraduate pharmacy students gain hospital experience through these links and are the only pharmacy students in the UK to have an extensive course completed in secondary care ^[16]

Notable academic staff and alumni

Main article: People associated with the University of Manchester

Many notable and famous people have worked or studied at one or both of the two former institutions that merged to form the University of Manchester, including 23 Nobel prize laureates. Some of the best known include John Dalton (founder of modern atomic theory), George E. Davis (founded the discipline of Chemical Engineering), Bernard Lovell (a pioneer of radio astronomy), Alan Turing (one of the founders of computer science and artificial intelligence), Irene Khan (current secretary general of Amnesty International) and Robert Bolt (two times Academy Award winner and three times Golden Globe winner for screenwriting Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago). Additionally, a number of politicians are associated with the university, including the first President of Israel, the current Presidents of Belize, Iceland and Trinidad and Tobago as well as several ministers among others in the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Canada and Singapore.

Nobel prize winners

Chemistry

• Ernest Rutherford (awarded Nobel prize in 1908), for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances (He was the first to probe the atom).
• Arthur Harden (awarded Nobel prize in 1929), for investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes.
• Walter Haworth (awarded Nobel prize in 1937), for his investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C.
• Robert Robinson (awarded Nobel prize in 1947), for his investigations on plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids.
• Alexander Todd (awarded Nobel prize in 1957), for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes.
• Melvin Calvin (awarded Nobel prize in 1961), for his research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants.
• John Charles Polanyi (awarded Nobel prize in 1986), for his contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes.
• Michael Smith (awarded Nobel prize in 1993), for his fundamental contributions to the establishment of oligonucleiotide-based, site-directed mutagenesis and its development for protein studies.

Physics

• Joseph John (J. J.) Thomson (awarded Nobel prize in 1906), in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases.
• William Lawrence Bragg (awarded Nobel prize in 1915), for his services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays.
• Niels Bohr (awarded Nobel prize in 1922), for his fundamental contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics.
• Charles Thomson Rees (C. T. R.) Wilson (awarded Nobel prize in 1927), for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapour.
• James Chadwick (awarded Nobel prize in 1935), for the discovery of the neutron.
• George de Hevesy (awarded Nobel prize in 1943), for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes.
• Patrick M. Blackett (awarded Nobel prize in 1948), for developing cloud chamber and confirming/discovering positron.
• Sir John Douglas Cockcroft (awarded Nobel prize in 1951), for his pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles.
• Hans Bethe (awarded Nobel prize in 1967), for his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars.
• Nevill Francis Mott (awarded Nobel prize in 1977), for his fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems.

Physiology and Medicine

• Archibald Vivian Hill (awarded Nobel prize in 1922), for his discovery relating to the production of heat in the muscle. One of the founders of the diverse disciplines of biophysics and operations research.
• Sir John Sulston (awarded Nobel prize in 2002), for his discoveries concerning 'genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death'. In 2007 it was announced that Sulston will join Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences and will chair Institute of Science, Ethics and Innovation.^[17]

Economics

• John Hicks (awarded Nobel prize in 1974), for his pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory.
• Sir Arthur Lewis (awarded Nobel prize in 1979), for his pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries.
• Joseph E. Stiglitz (awarded Nobel prize in 2001), for his analyses of markets with asymmetric information. Currently, Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz heads the Brooks World Poverty Institute (BWPI) at the University of Manchester.

References

•  • [ e] University of Manchester
Schools	Manchester Business School Manchester Medical School School of Anthropology School of Architecture School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Sciences School of Computer Science School of Mathematics School of Physics and Astronomy
Centres	Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics Manchester Centre for Integrative Systems Biology Manchester Centre for New Writing Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre Wolfson Molecular Imaging Centre
Buildings	Alan Turing Building Barnes Wallis Building Faraday Building Maths and Social Sciences Building Renold Building Sackville Street Building Stopford Building
Facilities	Chancellors Hotel & Conference Centre Contact Theatre Firs Botanical Grounds Godlee Observatory Jodrell Bank Observatory John Rylands University Library Manchester Academy Manchester Aquatics Centre Manchester Conference Centre Manchester Museum Tabley House UMIST linear system Whitworth Art Gallery
History	UMIST Victoria University of Manchester Victoria University (UK)
Alumni	People associated with the University of Manchester

•  • [ e] Universities in the United Kingdom
England	Anglia Ruskin University of the Arts Aston Bath Bath Spa Bedfordshire Birmingham UCE Birmingham (Birmingham Conservatoire) Bolton Bournemouth Bradford Brighton Bristol Brunel Buckingham Cambridge Canterbury Christ Church Central Lancashire Chester Chichester City Coventry Cranfield Cumbria De Montfort Derby Durham East Anglia East London Edge Hill Essex Exeter Gloucestershire Greenwich Hertfordshire Huddersfield Hull Imperial Kent Keele Kingston Lancaster Leeds Leeds Metropolitan Leicester Lincoln Liverpool Liverpool Hope Liverpool John Moores London (Birkbeck Central School of Speech and Drama Courtauld Institute of Art Goldsmiths Heythrop Institute of Cancer Research Institute of Education King's London Business School LSE LSHTM Queen Mary Royal Academy of Music Royal Holloway Royal Veterinary College St George's SOAS School of Pharmacy UCL) London Metropolitan London South Bank Loughborough Manchester Manchester Metropolitan Middlesex Newcastle Northampton Northumbria Nottingham Nottingham Trent Oxford Oxford Brookes Plymouth Portsmouth Reading Roehampton Royal College of Art Salford Sheffield Sheffield Hallam Southampton Southampton Solent Staffordshire Surrey Sunderland Sussex Teesside Thames Valley Warwick UWE Westminster Winchester Wolverhampton Worcester York York St John
Scotland	Aberdeen Abertay Dundee Edinburgh Glasgow Glasgow Caledonian Heriot-Watt Napier Paisley Queen Margaret Robert Gordon St Andrews Stirling Strathclyde
Wales	Aberystwyth Bangor Cardiff Glamorgan Lampeter Newport NEWI Swansea SIHE Trinity UWIC Wales
Northern Ireland	Queen's Ulster
Non−geographic	Open University

•  • [ e] Russell Group of British research universities
Birmingham Bristol Cambridge Cardiff Edinburgh Glasgow Imperial College London King's College London Leeds Liverpool London School of Economics Manchester Newcastle Nottingham Oxford Queen's Sheffield Southampton University College London Warwick

•  • [ e] N8 Group of Northern England research universities
Durham • Lancaster • Leeds • Liverpool • Manchester • Newcastle • Sheffield • York

Coordinates: