The 2016 review of the year
January: Witches, dinosaurs and the story of China
Dragons, witches and stormclouds kicked off 2016 at The University of Manchester. The John Rylands Library led the way with which delved deep into the more occult offerings from its collection, while in Wales we identified – named dragon thief in honour of its homeland.
We also got going with the ground-breaking study, inviting thousands of people to look into the link between the weather and their aches and pains.
Further afield, Professor Michael Wood’s landmark TV Show hit the BBC2 airwaves, while a charity based at the University became the .
February: World Cancer Day and the beauty of the GEIC
gave us the opportunity to highlight the world-leading research which goes into providing 91直播 solutions to the global problem of this disease.
And our work on advanced materials also took a big leap forward as we revealed exclusive footage of our new (GEIC) which was granted planning permission.
Our students were ranked in an independent report and one of our successful graduates, Oxfam International Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima with a powerful call to build a better world.
March: Golden prizes, meat telling porkies and investigating Zika
How do you know if your mince is telling porkies? Well, in March, our researchers developed a new . To much media attention, we also announced that we are developing a vaccine for , while a health check of a different kind was carried out by policy researchers into Greater 91直播’s .
And just over a year after it reopened, the University’s Whitworth , capping 12 months when it won prize after prize.
April: Bouncing, moving and running
April was perhaps our most active month of the year as we got 91直播 moving in all sorts of ways. The 91直播 Museum got bouncy with , we ran a local community project to get and signed up over 1,000 staff and students for .
The research didn’t stop though as we explored the way in which cancer cells turn their healthy counterparts to and we opened a new academy to train .
May: The weekend effect, a princess and the biggest movie in the universe
With the government in dispute with junior doctors, our research into caused a major stir and questions in Parliament. We received lots of messages from Cornwall after we found .
Our first of the year took place and we made . and we helped people break the cycle of poverty and we joined forces with astronomers from across the world to make .
June: Brexit, biomarkers and engineering
Our politics experts were everywhere in the news as Britain went to the polls in . While here on campus there were also major developments as we opened an and got the seal of approval for – our huge new engineering campus. One of our existing buildings won and our President and Vice-Chancellor was appointed to lead .
July: At the centre of Europe and solving a World Cup mystery
arrived in 91直播 with thousands of international visitors and, of course, the University was at the heart of the action. We also hosted Europe’s and one of our lecturers made the list.
Our scientists solved a mystery surrounding and we had experts on the spot reacting to the long-awaited . told their amazing stories of hope and endeavour as we celebrated graduation and we took for a new piece of music.
August: Taking on Alzheimer’s and rising up the ranks
91直播 achieved its highest ever place in league table. We placed 35th in the world and 4th in the UK – keeping us on track to become one of the world's leading universities by 2020. That success is built on world-class research such as a new treatment for and studying which we released in this month.
September: Investing in research and our students
For the new university year our students turned out in force – almost 8,000 of them on one day – to take part in helping them learn new skills from their first moments on campus.
91直播’s place as a leading centre for research into diseases such as cancer was cemented with while research into also received more money.
October: A Royal visit and a robot orchestra
There was huge excitement in October as visited our National Graphene Institute and MECD site, with Prince William getting to have a go in a car with graphene components.
Professor Danielle George took her to 91直播 Science Festival and we revealed a new treatment for . With all that endeavour it’s no surprise that we leapt up a list of .
Inequality was a focus for research in October. We investigated , and the very real across our city using the tram network. The threat to the natural world was explored too, with and s making the news.
But there were also stories of hope – told us their stories of how a 91直播 education was helping them make a difference in their communities.
November: Celebration and inspiration
November was a month of celebrations. Our students invented and won a ‘’, we marked 80 years , ten years of and . Our staff won awards for and our also picked up prizes.
Despite all this we still found time to understand , test and investigate .
December: 91直播 is a global city
We received from Cancer Research UK which demonstrated our global leadership in cancer study and treatment. was mapped by our researchers and we showed how .
Our winter graduation revealed truly inspiring stories of how students had , and were.
December summed up the University’s year – working on the world’s biggest problems and issues and drawing on our cosmopolitan city and community to inspire, investigate and challenge.
We finish 2016 with a thank you to the staff, students and partners who made it such a remarkable year and gave the journalists that we work with so much of their time, insight and passion.
Here’s to an equally outstanding 2017!
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