Four teenagers chatting happily in a youth club meeting room

Our research mission for takling inequalities

Discover what drives us to create a more equal society and improve opportunities throughout the course of people's lives, moulding a society where prejudice has no place.

About our research mission

The lives people lead — their opportunity to be happy, healthy and fulfilled, and to make the most of their potential — are constrained by often-overlooked social factors.

Deprivation. Social exclusion. Mental health problems. Illness. Disability. Poor educational outcomes. All have a damaging effect, and often in combination.

The Covid-19 pandemic further exposed the impact of these inequalities and the need for radical reform in:

  • health and social care, pivoting from curing disease towards preventing it
  • the education system, becoming genuinely inclusive and enabling all children and young people to thrive
  • the criminal justice system, tackling deep-rooted problems with a focus on social justice

Through our world-leading research, we aim to make this change possible.

We also ensure that the people we research with can shape our research agenda, whether that’s in psychology, social science, criminology or education.

Our research strengths include:

  • understanding how health and social care needs intersect and what is needed to serve a diverse, ageing and increasingly frail population
  • examining reform of welfare systems and public services, and opportunities to address inequalities and support new understandings of social justice
  • transforming national policy and practice within the criminal justice system, helping to tackle reoffending and improve life chances
  • creating interventions to improve the lives of people with long-term conditions like diabetes and dementia
  • providing insights into health and care workforces to enable system-wide innovations that will benefit society
  • revealing the importance of place, and how it affects the aspirations of individuals, families, communities, workforces and charities
Our usual ways of doing research can exclude people in marginalised communities, leading us to ask the wrong questions and come up with ways forward that don’t help. At Manchester Met, we work with people in marginalised communities to define our research so that it delivers real impact.
Chris Hatton
Professor of Social Care
Our usual ways of doing research can exclude people in marginalised communities, leading us to ask the wrong questions and come up with ways forward that don’t help. At Manchester Met, we work with people in marginalised communities to define our research so that it delivers real impact.
Chris Hatton
Professor of Social Care

Featured research projects

  • A researcher talking to a local resident with the Accent Van recording studio

    Manchester Voices

    A research project exploring the accents, dialects and identities of people in Greater Manchester.

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  • Business people at a conference holding books and digital tablets while talking

    Co-production in AI research

    Helping researchers across Greater Manchester involve and engage the public in artificial intelligence research.

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  • A group of teenagers sat chatting on metal steps - two of them holding skateboards

    COVID-19's impact on youth justice

    Exploring the impact of the pandemic on each stage of the youth justice system and looking for lessons for policy and practice.

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  • graffiti covered wall in Ljubljana squatting district

    Making and managing Ljubljana's urban squats

    Investigating inclusive and participatory practices within autonomous housing communities.

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  • A pulmonary disease patient doing exercises with the aid of virtual reality technology

    Using virtual reality to help pulmonary patients

    Using technology to help vulnerable people continue rehabilitation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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  • Five professionals in discussion around a table

    Championing change for BAME leadership

    Working with housing providers in Greater Manchester to investigate obstacles to career progression for Black, Asian and Minoritized Ethnic employees.

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  • A person is comforted by someone touching their hand during a consultation

    Fertility journeys and the workplace

    Exploring the connection between work and fertility - and addressing the gap in knowledge around workplace fertility support.

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  • Three primary aged schoolchildren sit at their desks engrossed with the class digital tablets

    Using digital technology to improve learning

    A review of the use of digital technology to raise attainment and enhance learning in schools.

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  • Child interacting with STEM project

    Early Years Learning at the Science Museum

    Reviewing the literature on zero to eight-year-old children's engagement with objects in science museums.

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  • Secondary school pupil plays game on an ipad in a classroom

    Gamifying CLIL

    Exploring the use of game-based learning to support the development of digital, numeracy and linguistic skills through an additional language.

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  • The T-Rex skeleton on display at the Manchester Museum

    How do families experience our museums?

    Abi Hackett, Christina MacRae and Lisa Procter

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  • A young student draws geometric shapes on a whiteboard

    Inclusive Mathematics Teaching

    Understanding and developing school and classroom strategies to raise mathematics attainment in Norwegian schools.

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  • Young female who was involved in the Loneliness Connects Us project.

    Loneliness and Young People

    Investigating youth loneliness in collaboration with young people.

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  • A box of toys lined with orange felt

    Manchester Art Gallery

    Interdisciplinary conversations around families with young children, wellbeing, place and art.

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  • group of young people walking past urban pop culture mural

    Partispace and PartiBridges

    Exploring the spaces and styles of young people's participation in European cities.

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  • A close up of a pair of hands using realistic mathematics materials

    Realistic Mathematics Education

    Working with Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) for more than 15 years, our latest project is a nationwide trial at Key Stage 3.

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  • Two secondary school students studying together in class

    RE Teachers and Values Education

    Providing RE teachers with the space to reflect on and influence the shifting landscape of values education.

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  • A poster designed by research participants about global citizenship

    Teaching ethical global issues

    New ways of exploring environmental, economic and social issues in secondary schools - with a toolkit for teachers.

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  • A yellow polo shirt

    The odd project

    Odd: feeling different in the world of education.

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  • A school pupil with a tutor

    Whole-school special educational needs review

    Investigating the effectiveness of the Whole School SEND Review Process on raising attainment in English at GCSE.

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  • Young school pupils engaging with teacher on democratic issues, as part of the project.

    Embedding a Democratic Culture in Teacher Education

    Providing primary school teachers with the support to embed democratic values into the classroom.

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  • Children in a classroom

    School funding, pupil performance and crime

    This ESRC funded project will explore whether school funding programmes that are known to have increased pupil performance, also had the effect of reducing crime

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  • Two young women stood close together, one touching the other's arm

    Supporting autistic adults’ intimate lives

    Helping autistic people enjoy healthy and fulfilling intimate relationships.

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  • A family carer helping his daughter, who has Down's syndrome, adjust her protective face mask at city street.

    COVID-19 and people with learning disabilities

    Improving services and support for adults with learning disabilities and their carers.

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  • Older people at a daycare centre working on crafts projects

    Using co-design to improve social care

    Designing quality social care services by capturing, understanding and using people’s experiences.

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  • researcher viewing sheet of brain scan images

    Linking cognition and gait impairments in Parkinson’s disease

    Investigating mobility loss in age-related diseases. 

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  • Protesters hold hands and lift their arms in the air at a peaceful demonstration

    Mental health act reform

    Improving the experiences of Black African-Caribbean men detained under the Mental Health Act: a co-produced intervention using the Silences Framework (ImprovE-ACT).

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  • Meds and Mental Health

    Medications and my mental health

    Mental health medications in the lives of people with learning disabilities

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  • A young man cleaning up the kitchen counter at home

    In Search of Flourishing Lives

    Helping people with learning disabilities get the support they need to do what they value most.

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  • Older woman with cup of tea

    Spinning Plates

    Addressing the knowledge gap about how carers of adults with learning disabilities conceptualise and experience mental health across the life course.

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  • BRIC-19 event image

    British Ritual Innovation under COVID-19 (BRIC-19)

    Understanding how Britain’s religious communities adapted during — and responded to — the COVID-19 pandemic.

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  • SAFEDI project image

    SAFEDI

    Improving equality, diversity and inclusion in partnership with social artists, audiences and policy makers.

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  • DWP

    The Good Employment Charter

    An evaluation of the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter with Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)

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Investigating, understanding and challenging unequal social relations is central to creating a just society. At Manchester Met, it’s our engagement with policy-makers, those with lived experience and practitioners which enables us to contribute to a better future through our research.
Khatidja Chantler
Professor of Gender, Equalities & Communities
Investigating, understanding and challenging unequal social relations is central to creating a just society. At Manchester Met, it’s our engagement with policy-makers, those with lived experience and practitioners which enables us to contribute to a better future through our research.
Khatidja Chantler
Professor of Gender, Equalities & Communities

Research groups

  • Manchester Met researchers Dr Magdalena Mikulak and Dawn Wiltshire

    Learning disabilities and autism

    Improving the lives of people with learning disabilities and autistic people by understanding and tackling inequalities, injustice and exclusion.

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  • Global network of telecommunication and internet connections

    Education and global futures

    Our group takes a global perspective on the most pressing education policy challenges.

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  • Female researcher cleaning equipment used for new materials research

    Sylvia Pankhurst Gender and Diversity Research Centre

    Understanding what causes inequalities at work and building fairer workplaces.

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  • Three employees working at computers in an office environment

    Work and working lives

    Exploring the management of people - and how work environments affect employee wellbeing, productivity and health.

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  • A smartly dressed worker talks to three colleagues in a meeting room

    Work, Management and Leadership Capabilities

    How leaders, managers and organisational processes affect the conditions enabling decent work and productivity.

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  • Four researchers collaborate on a mathematical craft project

    Mathematics education

    Advancing new theoretical and practical approaches to the study of mathematics teaching, learning, and behaviour.

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  • A teacher sat with primary school pupils looking at their work

    Teacher Education

    Our work on leadership, curriculum and inclusion encompasses initial teacher education, early professional learning and leadership development.

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  • A researcher talking to a person using an interactive assistive communication device

    Communication disability

    Connecting with practitioners and service users to enable those with communication disability to fulfil their potential.

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  • A green ribbon in a person's hands to show support for World Mental Health day

    Mental health

    Addressing mental health inequalities in organisation and community services with experts by experience.

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  • CORDILLERA A Weave Learning Tool Kit

    Community, Culture and Heritage

    Using design and craft research to understand and relate to places, people, history and culture.

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