Thurs 3 Nov, GM107

Hannah Smithson, Richard McHugh

Manchester Centre for Youth Studies

The Manchester Centre for Youth Studies (MCYS) was established in 2014 and brings together
researchers from across the university including the humanities, social sciences and education to
explore how the meanings, experiences and representations of youth have changed over time. In
particular, MCYS focuses on developing ways in which young people are best able to participate in
research on youth as co-researchers rather than merely research subjects. This shift in power
relations within youth studies research not only allows for greater authenticity for the research
process and outputs, but also generates a wealth of creativity and positive challenges to the process
and wider youth studies theory and approaches. Through working collaboratively with young people
MCYS find new and innovative approaches and ideas that would otherwise have been not
considered. Likewise, through working with young people in research, we also encounter and are
presented with challenges to our own preconceived ideas about what research is, should be and can
be. Challenges that we as adults, as researchers and as academics we would not have otherwise
encountered. In our research with young people and responding to their creativity, energy and
challenges we have worked with a wide range of young people, community groups, national charities,
arts and creative sector organisations, academics and institutions. With projects ranging from utilising
creative narrative methods for the DfE, through to projects focusing on how identity may be mediated
through the space of the street within youth sub-cultures. Similarly, MCYS has been and continues to
present and curate a broad range of public lectures and engagement activity. From ESRC and AHRC
engagement activity with local schools and young people through to presenting internationally
renowned scholars and involvement in the Humanities in Public series.

Tue 8 Nov, GM325

Chris Fox
MetroPolis - Research into Policy and Practice

MetroPolis is a platform to promote high-quality Manchester Metropolitan research to policy makers

and makes a significant contribution to building the confidence and capability of academic staff in
relation to policy impact. MetroPolis presents an opportunity to project the fresh thinking and new
ideas generated by researchers through a programme of events, guest lectures, public forums,
fellowships and debates aimed at positioning the University at the centre of thought leadership in the
City, the region and nationally. MetroPolis was originally established in April 2015 to maximise the
external profile of the Universitys policy-relevant research and to build capacity. The first phase of
MetroPolis resulted in the creation of a website and associated social media channels, the
development of policy briefings, a cross-faculty academic network, training and development and
related events. With the recent addition of funding from the Universitys Strategic Opportunities Fund
MetroPolis will develop further over the next 3 years.

Tue 15 Nov, GM325

Steve Hawley with Marion Hewitt (North west Film Archive)
Archive film, new media, memory, and Manchester
The North West Film Archive is part of MMU, and a huge asset to Arts and Humanities. Marion and
Steve talk about projects they have realised and are currently involved in that use archive film, that

embrace art, history and new media, and look at the opportunities for research and creative practice
enables by the Archive including Calling Blighty (rare film of WW2), Yarn, (generative narrative),
and Manchester Time Machine (GPS enabled film app).

Thu 17 Nov, GM107

Martyn Evans
Making Vital Again: Exploring Culture By Design
Martyn will explore how design can make a meaningful contribution to the revitalisation of culturally
significant designs, products and practices to make them relevant to the needs of people today.
Increasingly, the importance of traditions associated with culturally significant designs, products and
practices are being reassessed as their rich historical links with community and culture mean they
have much to offer in terms of identity, wellbeing and the promotion of cultural diversity. Drawing upon
work undertaken as part of the 3-year AHRC funded Design Routes project, this show and tell will
detail a series of design approaches that have been successfully employed to make vital (again) a
range of culturally significant products and associated practices.

Tue 22 Nov, GM325

Felicity Colman, Toby Heys
Media : The matter, the future, the methods
Prof Felicity Colman and Dr Toby Heys will chat through their respective current research in Media
related topics and network funded projects; which include the topics of:
New Materialism: Networking European Scholarship on How Matter Comes to Matter [European
Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST, supported by the EU Framework Programme
Horizon 2020), Action IS1307 ]
The Ethics of Coding [EoC] [ EU Framework Programme Horizon 2020 project 732407]
Enlight - A pan European sound and light production/residency/festival project funded by the
European Cultural Fund

3D printing graphene funded by EPSRC

Thu 24 Nov, GM107

Clare Knox Bentham & Elle Simms
Manchester School of Art Outreach Why Failing is a Good Thing

How can an 'Art School' Pedagogy preserve our economic future? For any subject area to become a
career or professional practice there has to involve risk-taking. Its vital to enter into a challenge
where you do not know the answers, to be able to learn. You need to be resilient to failing

spectacularly in order to learn to take the positives and discard the unusable, without judgement.
Creative problem solving and challenging yourself are vital in any subject. Recognising failure and
recovering from it is a vital life skill.

Tue 29 Nov, GM325

Clive Parkinson, Amanda Ravetz, Helen Felcey, Katherine Taylor, Claire Ford
Arts, Health and Wellbeing: Research and Practice
The arts and health movement is evolving into what has been described as a small scale global
phenomenon.* This session will explore its roots in Manchester and a range of diverse research,
practice and political advocacy that embraces healthy ageing, social justice and recovery from
substance misuse, and will set the scene for future collaborative opportunities.
*Mike White Arts Development in Community Health: A Social Tonic (2009)

Thu 1 Dec, GM337

Jon Bannister
The Manchester Met Crime and Wellbeing Big Data (BDC)

Launched in September, the BDC is a cross-Faculty initiative designed to further enhance the
Universitys international research profile and contribution to civic prosperity in Greater
Manchester. The BDC comprises a multi-disciplinary team with expertise in advanced quantitative
methods / data science and evaluation. The BDC aims to assemble, manage and interrogate the
large and complex data sets that are increasingly emerging from the day-to-day activities of the
citizenry, government and business. The ambition of the BDC is to offer new theoretically informed
insights into the enduring societal challenges of crime and well-being. Moreover, the BDC will work
to support government achieve the effective, efficient and equitable delivery of of services.

Tue 6 Dec, GMLT5

Jackie Snow, Simon Gilman, David Salter and David Shirley.
School of Theatre: Vocational Training - Embodying Practice
The Manchester School of Theatre at the Manchester Metropolitan University has a long standing
international reputation for preparing students for careers as professional actors. Our graduates have
found careers in all of the major theatre, film and TV companies including the BBC, ITV, the Royal
National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as all of the major touring and regional
repertory companies. We will talk about the traditions we work from and how these are inherited,
reinterpreted, passed on and written into chapters, articles and research presentations etc.
We are a new research cluster (set up this summer and currently externally funded buy Innovate UK
CityVerve + Horizon 2020) within the school of architecture called Centre for Complex Planning & Urbanism.
We are also founding members of the DACAS ESRC Strategic Network (London, Manchester, Tokyo, Wuhan,
Aberdeen, Sao Paulo). Our work uses a complexity framework to develop new digital tools, computational
thinking and urban theory addressing spatio-temporal dynamics within urban processes. The research is
transdisciplinary and currently spans Future Cities, Smart Cities, the Internet of Things, agile governance and
cities as complex adaptive systems.

Thu 8 Dec, GM107

Ulysses Sengupta, Robert Hyde, Pok Yin Cheung,
Complexity Planning & Urbanism: Digital Future Cities

We are a new research cluster (set up this summer and currently externally funded buy Innovate UK
CityVerve + Horizon 2020) within the school of architecture called Centre for Complex Planning &
Urbanism. We are also founding members of the DACAS ESRC Strategic Network (London,
Manchester, Tokyo, Wuhan, Aberdeen, Sao Paulo). Our work uses a complexity framework to
develop new digital tools, computational thinking and urban theory addressing spatio-temporal
dynamics within urban processes. The research is transdisciplinary and currently spans Future Cities,
Smart Cities, the Internet of Things, agile governance and cities as complex adaptive systems.

Tue 13 Dec, GM226

David Tyler, Jane Wood
Fashion Institute Wearable Technologies

Over the past 16 years, since the first commercial wearable electronic garment, the sector has
grown dramatically, with large budgets for R&D, for prototype development and for marketing
products. Much of the investment has been in wearables in the sectors of medical monitoring and of
sport. The experience of other sectors has been mixed, and numerous prototypes have been
launched, but have never achieved commercial success.
The commercial relevance of wearable electronics is undisputed by a growing number of companies,
who are actively looking for partners to develop expertise and develop ranges of robust products.
However, this is an interdisciplinary field, needing technologists and other specialists from many
disciplines to work together to achieve commercial products. Many companies do not have the
resources for handling these more complex product development processes, and this provides
universities with an opportunity for collaborative work with industry.
MMU is well-positioned to launch an initiative in this area, because of its long-standing commitment
to working with industry and its existing expertise. This includes:
The Manchester Fashion Institute (apparel design & technology)
The Sports Institute (bringing research and technology expertise to the sporting world)
John Dalton Institute (sensors, smart materials, smart buildings and app developments)
Research Institute for Health and Social Change (rehabilitation, wellbeing, physiotherapy, etc.)

Thu 15 Dec, GM107

Lucy Burke, Anna Bergvist, Stella Bullo and Wahida Khandker, Linnie Blake
Critical Medical Humanities
Work in the Critical Medical Humanities moves beyond the traditional opposition between the arts,
humanities and social sciences and the clinical and life sciences in order to explore what Will Viney,

Felicity Callard and Angela Woods describe as their 'productive entanglements within a biomedical
culture. This field is thus characterised by a commitment to the development of new forms of
interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration. This session introduces a range of research projects
in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities that seek to explore different aspects of contemporary
biomedical culture from a range perspectives.