Find out who was presented with Making a Difference winner and highly commended awards

The University’s annual Making a Difference Awards took place on Thursday 2 May in the Whitworth Hall

Over 200 guests attended, including the Chancellor, President and Vice-Chancellor, Chair of the Board of Governors, Mayor of the City of Manchester and Her Majesty’s Vice Lord-Lieutenant of Greater Manchester.

Awards highlighted the rich breadth of social responsibility impact by staff, students and external partners and covered categories such as research impact, public and community engagement, widening participation, equality, diversity and inclusion, teaching innovation, environmental sustainability and social enterprise.

More than 170 individuals and teams submitted entries, with judges recognising 14 winning and 28 highly commended awards. The winners included a team from the School of Health Sciences for their work on suicide prevention and a team of staff and students investigating miscarriages of justice.

A Special Award was also presented to Professor James Thompson, who will be stepping down from his role as Vice-President for Social Responsibility this summer, for his commitment to social responsibility over the past eight years. The School Governors Initiative took the spotlight section of the Awards, where they celebrated reaching 1,000 school governors in their network of staff and alumni.

Professor James Thompson said: “The Awards are a wonderful opportunity to recognise and share the inspiring work in which our dedicated staff, students, alumni and partners are involved. They provide the perfect opportunity to celebrate innovation on campus, locally and across the world. This was also my fifth and final Making a Difference Awards and it was a real honour and surprise to receive a special Award too!”

Details of all the winners and highly commended can be found on the social responsibility website and short films about each of our winners are available on the social responsibility YouTube channel.