| The University of Manchester | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Arms of the University of Manchester. The Manchester bee is the main symbol of Manchester. |
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| Motto | Latin: Cognitio, sapientia, humanitas | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Motto in English | "Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Established | 2004, by the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester (established 1851) and UMIST (established 1824) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Endowment | £144.4m (2010)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chancellor | Tom Bloxham | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vice-Chancellor | Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell DBE | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Admin. staff | 10,407 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Students | 39,165[2] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Undergraduates | 27,310[2] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Postgraduates | 11,850[2] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Manchester, United Kingdom | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Campus | Urban and Suburban | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nobel Laureates | 25[3] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Colours | Blue, Gold, Purple |
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| Affiliations | Russell Group, EUA, N8 Group, NWUA, ACU | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Website | manchester.ac.uk | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. The university was formed in October 2004 by the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester (established 1851) and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (established 1824). It is a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities, the N8 Group and a "red brick" university having gained a royal charter under its Victoria University predecessor in 1903.
The University of Manchester and its constituent former institutions have 25 Nobel Laureates among their past and present students and staff, the third highest number of any single university in the United Kingdom (after Cambridge and Oxford). Four Nobel laureates are currently among its staff - Andre Geim (Physics, 2010), Kostya Novoselov (Physics, 2010), Sir John Sulston (Physiology and Medicine, 2002) and Joseph Stiglitz (Economics, 2001).
Following the merger, the university was named Sunday Times University of the Year in 2006 after winning the inaugural Times Higher Education Supplement University of the Year prize in 2005.[4] According to 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".[5]
In 2007/08, the University of Manchester had over 40,000 students studying 500 academic programmes and more than 10,000 staff, making it the largest single-site university in the United Kingdom.[6] More students try to gain entry to the University of Manchester than any other university in the country, with more than 60,000 applications for undergraduate courses alone.[5] The University of Manchester had a total income of £787.9 million in 2009/10 (the third-highest of any university in the UK after Cambridge and Oxford), of which £194.6 million was from research grants and contracts.[7][8]
In the first national assessment of higher education research since the university’s founding, the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise,[9] the University of Manchester came 3rd in terms of research power after Cambridge and Oxford and 8th for grade point average quality when including specialist institutions.[10] In the 2011 Academic Ranking of World Universities, Manchester is ranked 38th in the world, 6th in Europe and 5th in the UK.[11] The university has also been ranked 29th in the world, 8th in Europe and 7th in the UK in the 2011 QS World University Rankings.
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The University can trace its roots as an academic institution back to the formation of the Mechanics' Institute in 1824 and it is closely linked to Manchester's emergence as the world's first industrial city.[12] The English chemist John Dalton, together with Manchester businessmen and industrialists, established the Mechanics' Institute (later to become UMIST) 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 1846 for the purpose of founding a college for the education of males on non-sectarian lines. His trustees established Owens College at Manchester in 1851. It was initially housed in a building, complete with Adam staircase, on the corner of Quay Street and Byrom Street which had been the home of the philanthropist Richard Cobden, and subsequently was to house Manchester County Court. In 1873 it moved to new buildings at Oxford Road, Chorlton-on-Medlock and from 1880 it was a constituent college of the federal Victoria University. The university was established and granted a Royal Charter in 1880 to become England's first civic university; it was renamed the Victoria University of Manchester in 1903 and then absorbed Owens College the following year.[13]
By 1905, the two institutions were large and active forces in the area, with the Municipal College of Technology, the forerunner of the later UMIST, forming the Faculty of Technology of the Victoria University of Manchester while continuing as a technical college in parallel with the advanced courses of study in the Faculty. Although UMIST achieved independent university status in 1955, the two universities continued to work together.[12]
Before the merger, Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST 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 by Rutherford, and the world's first stored-program computer coming into being at the university. Famous scientists associated with the university include the physicists Osborne Reynolds, 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, such as by the work of the mathematicians Paul Erdős, Horace Lamb and Alan Turing; the author Anthony Burgess; philosophers Samuel Alexander, 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 computer scientist Steve Furber, economist Richard Nelson,[14] novelist Colm Tóibín[15] and biochemist Sir John Sulston, Nobel laureate of 2002.
In 2004, the Victoria University of Manchester (established in 1851) and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (established in 1824) were formally merged into a single institution.
The newly merged University of Manchester was officially launched on 1 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 founding President and Vice-Chancellor of the new university was Alan Gilbert, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, who retired at the end of the 2009-2010 academic year.[16] The current vice chancellor is Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, who held a chair in physiology at the university since 1994. One of the university's aims stated in the Manchester 2015 Agenda is to be one of the top 25 universities in the world. This follows Alan Gilbert's aim for the university to 'establish it by 2015 among the 25 strongest research universities in the world on commonly accepted criteria of research excellence and performance'.[17] As of 2011, four Nobel laureates are currently among its staff: Andre Geim, Konstantin Novoselov, Sir John Sulston and Joseph E. Stiglitz.
The main site of the University contains the vast majority of its facilities and is often referred to simply as campus. Despite this, Manchester is not a campus university as the concept is commonly understood. It is centrally located and the buildings of the main site are integrated into the fabric of Manchester, with non-university buildings and major roads between them.
Campus occupies an area shaped roughly like a boot: the foot of the boot is aligned roughly south-west to north-east and is joined to the broader southern part of the boot by an area of overlap between former UMIST and former VUM buildings;[18] it comprises two parts:
These names are not officially recognised by the University, but are commonly used, including in parts of its website; another usage is Sackville Street Campus and Oxford Road Campus. They roughly correspond to the campuses of the old UMIST and Victoria University respectively, although there was already some overlap before the merger.
Fallowfield Campus is the main residential campus of the University. It is located in Fallowfield, approximately 2 miles (3 km) south of the main site.
There are a number of other university buildings located throughout the city and the wider region, such as One Central Park (in the northern suburb of Moston)[19] and Jodrell Bank Observatory (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.
Despite its size, the University of Manchester is divided into only four faculties, each sub-divided into schools:
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 a sale of unused assets.[20] These include:
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). The first to be built (in 1873) was the John Owens Building (formerly the Main Building: the others were added over the next thirty years. In fact, the Rear Quadrangle is older than the Old Quadrangle. Today, the museum continues to occupy part of one side (including the tower) and the grand setting of the Whitworth Hall is used for the conferment of degrees. Part of the old Christie Library (1898) now houses Christie's Bistro, and the remainder of the buildings house administrative departments.
The Manchester Museum holds nearly 4.25 million[21] items sourced from many parts of the world. The 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. In November 2004, the museum acquired a cast of a fossilised Tyrannosaurus rex called "Stan".
The history of the museum goes back to 1821, when the first collections were assembled by the Manchester Society of Natural History and later increased by those of the Manchester Geological Society. Due to the society's financial difficulties and on the advice of the great evolutionary biologist Thomas Huxley, Owens College accepted responsibility for the collections in 1867. The college commissioned Alfred Waterhouse, the architect of London’s Natural History Museum, to design a museum building to house these collections for the benefit of students and the public on a new site in Oxford Road. The Manchester Museum was finally opened to the public in 1888.[22]
The Contact Theatre largely stages modern live performance and participatory work for younger audiences. The present fortress-style building on Devas Street was completed in 1999 but incorporates parts of its 1960s predecessor.[23] It features a unique energy-efficient system, using its high towers to naturally ventilate the building without the use of air conditioning. The colourful and curvaceous interior houses three performance spaces, a lounge bar and Hot Air, a reactive public artwork in the foyer.
The university's library, the John Rylands University Library, is the largest non-legal deposit library in the UK, as well as being the UK's third-largest academic library after those of Oxford and Cambridge.[24] It also has the largest collection of electronic resources of any library in the UK.[24]
The oldest part of the library, the John Rylands 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 other printed materials, manuscripts, including archives and papyri. The papyri are in various ancient languages and include the oldest extant New Testament document, Rylands Library Papyrus P52, commonly known as the St John Fragment. In April 2007 the Deansgate site reopened to readers and the public, following major improvements and renovations, including the construction of the pitched roof originally intended and a new wing in Spinningfield.
The Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics is a combination of the astronomical academic staff, situated in Manchester, and the Jodrell Bank Observatory in rural land near Goostrey, about ten miles (16 km) west of Macclesfield away from the lights of Greater Manchester. 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 University Press is an academic publishing house which exists as part of the university. It publishes academic monographs as well as textbooks and journals, the majority of which are works from authors based elsewhere in the international academic community, and is the third largest university press in England after Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.
The Whitworth Art Gallery is home to collections of internationally famous British watercolours, textiles and wallpapers, as well as of modern and historic prints, drawings, paintings and sculpture. It contains some 31,000 items in its collection. A programme of temporary exhibitions runs throughout the year, with the Mezzanine Court serving as a venue for showing sculpture. It was founded by Robert Darbishire with a donation from Sir Joseph Whitworth in 1889, as The Whitworth Institute and Park. 70 years later in 1959 the gallery became officially part of the University of Manchester.[25] In October 1995 a Mezzanine Court in the centre of the building was opened. This new gallery, designed chiefly for the display of sculptures, won a RIBA regional award.
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. Whilst living in the house, Whitworth used land to the rear (now the site of the University's botanical glasshouses) for testing his "Whitworth rifle". 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.
| ARWU[26] (2011/12, national) |
5 | |
|---|---|---|
| ARWU[26] (2011/12, world) |
38 | |
| QS[27] (2011/12, national) |
7 | |
| QS[27] (2011/12, world) |
29 | |
| THE[28] (2011/12, national) |
7 | |
| THE[28] (2011/12, world) |
48 | |
| Complete/The Independent[29] (2012, national) |
29 | |
| The Guardian[30] (2012, national) |
41 | |
| The Sunday Times[31] (2012, national) |
37 | |
| The Times[32] (2012, national) |
32 | |
The university has a very high quality research profile and is counted among the leading universities in the world. In addition to being a member of the prestigious Russell Group, Manchester is also included in the Sutton Trust's list of highly selective 'elite' UK institutions.[33] In the first national assessment of higher education research since the university’s founding, the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, the University of Manchester came 3rd in terms of research power after Cambridge and Oxford and 6th for grade point average quality[34] (8th when including specialist institutions).[10] Accordingly, Manchester enjoys the largest amount of research funding behind Oxbridge, UCL and Imperial[35] (these five universities being informally referred to as the 'golden diamond' of research-intensive UK institutions[36]). Manchester also has a particularly strong presence in terms of funding from the three main UK research councils, EPSRC, MRC and BBSRC, being ranked 5th,[37] 7th[38] and 1st[39] respectively. In addition, the university is also one of the richest in the UK in terms of income and interest from endowments: at a recent rank it was placed at 3rd place behind Oxbridge.[40] Despite the recent severe cuts in higher education Manchester remains at second place behind Oxford nationally in terms of total recurrent grants allocated by the HEFCE.[41]
Historically, Manchester has been linked with high scientific achievement: the university and its constituent former institutions combined had 25 Nobel Laureates among their students and staff, the third largest number of any single university in the United Kingdom behind Oxford and Cambridge. Purely in terms of Nobel prize winners Manchester is ranked 9th in Europe. Furthermore, according to an academic poll two of the top ten discoveries by university academics and researchers were made at the University (namely the first working computer and the contraceptive pill).[42] The university currently employs 4 Nobel Prize winners amongst its staff, more than any other in the UK.[43]
The 2009 THE - QS World University Rankings found Manchester overall 26th in the world. It was also ranked by the same report 5th internationally by employer reviews (along with MIT and Stanford and ahead of Yale and Cornell) by receiving a maximum 100% rating which the university has retained since 2008.[44][45] The separate 2011 QS World University Rankings[46] found that Manchester had slipped to 29th overall in the world(in 2010 Times Higher Education World University Rankings and QS World University Rankings parted ways to produce separate rankings).
The Academic Ranking of World Universities 2008 published by the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranked Manchester 5th in the UK, 6th in Europe and 40th in the world.[47] After several years of steady progress Manchester fell back in 2009 to 41st in the world and 7th in Europe,[48] falling back further to 44th in the world and 9th in Europe in 2010.[49] Excluding US universities, Manchester is ranked 10th in the world for 2011 by the ARWU. According to the ARWU rankings the university is ranked 9th in Europe for natural sciences[50] and 4th in engineering.[51] Similarly the HEEACT 2009 rankings for scientific performance place Manchester 5th in Europe for engineering,[52] 8th for natural sciences[53] and 3rd for social sciences.[54] And finally THES ranks Manchester 6th in Europe for technology,[55] 10th for life sciences[56] and 7th for social sciences.[57] More recently a survey by the Times Higher Education Supplement has shown that Manchester is placed 6th in Europe in the area of Psychology & Psychiatry.[58] According to a further ranking by SCImago Research Group Manchester is ranked 8th in Europe amongst higher education institutions in terms of sheer research output.[59] In terms of research impact a further ranking places Manchester 6th in Europe.[60] Manchester is also one of only seven universities in Europe which are rated Excellent in all seven main academic departments (Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology, Economics and Political Science) by the 2010 Centre for Higher Education's Development's Excellence Rankings.[61] The Manchester Business School is currently ranked 29th worldwide (4th nationally) by the Financial Times.[62] The latest THES rankings place Manchester 11th in Europe with respect to research volume, income and reputation[63] and 7th in the UK.
According to the High Fliers Research Limited's survey, University of Manchester students are being targeted by more top recruiters for graduate vacancies than any other UK university students for three consecutive years (2007–2009).[64][65] Furthermore the university has been ranked joint 20th in the world for 2009 according to the Professional Ranking of World Universities.[66] Its main compilation criterion is the number of Chief Executive Officers (or number 1 executive equivalent) which are among the "500 leading worldwide companies" as measured by revenue who studied in each university. The ranking places the University only behind Oxford nationally. Manchester is ranked 5th among British universities according to a popularity ranking which is based on the degree of traffic that a university's website attracts.[67] Also a further report places Manchester within the top 20 universities outside the US.[68] Manchester was also given a prestigious award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts by the Times Higher Education Awards 2010.[69]
At a recent ranking undertaken by the Guardian, Manchester is placed 5th in the UK in international reputation behind the usual four: Oxbridge, UCL and Imperial.[70] Furthermore, according to the latest QS World University Rankings, Manchester is ranked 4th in Europe strictly in terms of both academic and employer reputation.[71] However, while as a rule world rankings (such as the ARWU, THES and HEEACT[72]) typically place the university within the top 10 in Europe, national studies are less complimentary; The Times 'Good University Guide 2011’[73] ranked Manchester 30th out of 113 Universities in the UK, ‘The Complete University Guide 2012' in association with The Independent placed it at 29th out of 116 universities[74] whilst ‘The Guardian University Guide 2012’ ranked Manchester at 41st out of 119 universities in the UK.[75] This apparent paradox is mainly a reflection of the different ranking methodologies employed by each listing: global rankings focus on research and international prestige, whereas national rankings are largely based on teaching and the student experience.
The origins of the Manchester Medical School go back to the The School of Anatomy established at Manchester Royal Infirmary by Joseph Jordan in 1814. Medical education has continued there since this time. The college was formally established in 1874 and is one of the largest in the country,[76] 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 100 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 Hospital, Hope Hospital and the Royal Preston Hospital. All are used for clinical medical training for doctors and nurses.
In 1883, a dedicated department of pharmacy was established at the University and, in 1904, Manchester became the first British university to offer an Honours degree in the subject. The School of Pharmacy[77] also benefits from the university's links with the Manchester Royal Infirmary and Wythenshawe and Hope hospitals. 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.[78] Moreover, the university is a founding partner of the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, established to focus high-end healthcare research in Greater Manchester.[79]
Future development plans include collaboration plans with Manchester City Football Club and the National Health Service (NHS) to establish a world-leading research facility on sports science and treatment in Sportcity.[80] Further details of the plans are expected to be revealed in the summer of 2011.
The University is regarded as the leading institute for dental education in the UK. According to The Times Higher Education Guide, the University was rated the best dental school in the UK for years 2010 & 2011.[81] Well known in the media, the University is one of the highest funded dental schools in the UK, due to their great emphasis on research and modernising learning. The University has also ascertained multi-million pound backings to maintain and elevate their standing as the preferred choice for dental education in the UK.[82] As a result, applicants to the University far exceed the places availabe, with the figures for 2011 being nearly 1000 applicants to 75 places.[83] The University is also popular with international students, due to its international reputation and diverse cultural influences.[84]
The prestigious dental course at Manchester focuses on a holistic approach to dental education, which has been widely regarded as the main reason for its success. With the dental school focusing their course around a more patient-orientated academic infrastructure, graduates have enjoyed amongst the highest graduate prospects.[85] The University is also well known for its unique and novel approaches towards learning and has been hailed by many educational experts in recents years for pioneering a more flexible learning outcome. The Guardian newspaper is amongst one of the media sources that has covered this new insight into education. As a result of the popularity of the teaching method, named 'Enquiry-based Learning', many dental schools around the UK are now adopting this teaching method within their academic infrastructure.[86]
The University Dental Hospital of Manchester is part of Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The Dental Hospital was established in 1884 in association with the School of Medicine at Owens College. It was then at Grosvenor Street, Chorlton on Medlock and in 1892 removed to another house, in Devonshire Street. Fund raising was slow in response to a public appeal and only in 1908 was the hospital able to occupy a new building on Oxford Road next to the Manchester Museum, designed in the Edwardian Baroque style by the architects Charles Heathcote & Sons. In 1905 the University established a degree and a diploma in dental surgery (these were first awarded in 1909 and 1908 respectively). A contribution from Godfrey Ermen towards the cost of building the hospital is recorded on a stone tablet near the entrance.[87]
Unlike some universities, the University of Manchester operates its own sports clubs via the Athletics Union. Student societies on the other hand are operated by the Students' Union.
Today the university can boast more than 80 health and fitness classes while over 3,000 students are members of the 44 various Athletic Union clubs. 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 within the university. Common teams include: lacrosse, korfball, dodgeball, hockey, rugby league, rugby union, football, basketball, netball and cricket. The Manchester Aquatics Centre, the swimming pool used for the Manchester Commonwealth Games is also on the campus.
The university competes annually in 28 different sports against Leeds and Liverpool universities in the Christie Cup, which Manchester has won for seven consecutive years.[89] The university has also achieved considerable success in the BUCS (British University & College Sports) competitions, with the mens water polo 1st team winning the national championships in both 2009 and 2010. It was positioned in eighth place in the overall BUCS rankings for 2009/10[90] The Christie Cup is an inter-university competition between Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester in numerous sports since 1886. After the Oxford and Cambridge rivalry, the Christie's Championships is the oldest Inter–University competition on the sporting calendar: the cup was a benefaction of Richard Copley Christie.
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.
The university has done particularly well in recent years on the BBC2 quiz programme University Challenge. In 2006, Manchester beat Trinity Hall, Cambridge, to record the university's first triumph in the competition. The year after, the university finished in second place after losing out to the University of Warwick in the final. The team has progressed to the semi-finals every year since 2005.
In 2009, the team battled hard in the final against Corpus Christi College, Oxford. At the gong, the score was 275 - 190 to Corpus Christi College after an extraordinary performance from Gail Trimble. However, the title was eventually given to the University of Manchester after it was discovered that Corpus Christi team member Sam Kay had graduated eight months before the final was broadcast, so that the team was disqualified.
Manchester reached the semi-finals in the 2010 competition before being beaten by Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Before they merged, the two former universities had for some time been sharing their residential facilities.
These halls are owned by the University of Manchester and house 1,085 students of that university.[91] It is most notable for the unique triangular shape of the accommodation blocks which gave rise to the nickname of "Toblerones", after the chocolate bar.
The designer of these unique 'Toblerone' shaped buildings took his inspiration from the hill which has been there since 1962, when as a result of a nearby archaeological dig (led by John Gater) the hill was created from the excavated soil. A consequence of this triangular design was a much reduced cost for the contracted construction company. Due to a deal struck between the University and Manchester City Council, which meant that the council would pay for the roofs of all student residential buildings in the area, Allan Pluen's team is believed to have saved thousands on the final cost of the halls. They were built in the mid 1970s.
It is also said by alumni, that the then University of Victoria got a grant for building the halls, and the then government would pay for the roof if they paid for the rest, hence they made very large roofs and not many bricks.
The site of the halls was previously occupied by many small streets whose names have been preserved in the names given to the halls. Grove House is a much older building and has been used by the University for many different purposes over the last sixty years. Its first occupants in 1951 were the Appointments Board and the Manchester University Press.[92] The shops in Thorncliffe Place were part of the same plan and include banks and a convenience store.
Notable people associated with the halls are Friedrich Engels whose residence on the site is commemorated by a blue plaque on Aberdeen House; the physicist Brian Cox; Irene Khan, Secretary general of Amnesty International; and Big Brother winner Omar Chaparro.
The former UMIST Campus has five halls of residence near to Sackville Street building (Weston, Lambert, Fairfield, Chandos, and Wright Robinson), and several other halls within a 5-15 minute walk away, such as the Grosvenor group of halls.
The former Moberly Tower has been demolished. There are also Vaughan House (once the home of the clergy serving the Church of the Holy Name)and George Kenyon Hall at University Place; Crawford House and Devonshire House adjacent to the Manchester Business School and Victoria Hall in Higher Cambridge Street.
The Fallowfield Campus, situated 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the main university campus (the Oxford Road Campus), is the largest of the university's residential campuses. The Owens Park group of halls with its landmark tower lies at the centre of it, while Oak House is another large hall of residence. Woolton Hall is also on the Fallowfield campus next to Oak House. Allen Hall is a traditional hall situated near Ashburne Hall (Sheavyn House being annexed to Ashburne). Richmond Park is also a relatively recent addition to the campus.
Victoria Park Campus, comprises several halls of residence. Among these are St Anselm Hall with Canterbury Court and Pankhurst Court, Dalton-Ellis Hall, Hulme Hall (including Burkhardt House), St Gabriel's Hall and Opal Gardens Hall. St Anselm Hall is the only all-male hall left in the United Kingdom.
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 25 Nobel prize laureates. Some of the best known include John Dalton (founder of modern atomic theory), Ludwig Wittgenstein (considered one of the most significant philosophers of the 20th century), 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), Tom Kilburn and Frederic Calland Williams (both who developed Small-Scale Experimental Machine(SSEM) or "Baby", the world's first stored-program computer at Victoria University of Manchester in 1948), 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 current Presidents of The Republic of Ireland, Belize, Iceland and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as several ministers among others in the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Canada and Singapore and also Chaim Weizmann, a chemist and the first President of Israel.
Overall, there have been 25 Nobel Prizes awarded to staff and students past and present, with some of the most important discoveries of the modern age being made in Manchester.
Chemistry
Physics
Physiology and Medicine
Economics
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