Tell us how you are making a difference

10 Oct 2013

A new engagement campaign to encourage staff to highlight how they are ‘making a difference’ to society has been launched featuring campus installations and a new blog.

Examples where staff are making a positive difference to society will then be used as part of the University’s new strategy for social responsibility, which is being launched during November and December to a range of audiences.

More than a hundred purple circles were installed across campus on Monday 7 October asking: “What Does Difference Look Like?”.

This was followed by a ‘reveal’ from the President today (Thursday 10 October), where these circles were replaced by a large range of case-studies communicating examples of what researchers, students, alumni, teaching and professional support staff are doing to ‘make a difference’ to society. These case studies aim to invite other staff to share their own stories or weblinks on a new Make a Difference blog.

Julian Skyrme, Director of Social Responsibility said “We hope staff will be inspired by the campaign to share the ways they are making a positive difference to society. From researching to recycling, public engagement to pedagogy, we want this initial awareness-raising campaign to celebrate and profile the great work colleagues are doing that contributes to our social responsibility priorities.”

Social responsibility is one of our three core goals in the Manchester 2020 strategic plan, sitting equally alongside our commitment to world-class research and outstanding learning and student experience. It describes the way we are making a difference to the social and economic well-being of our communities through our teaching, research and public events and activities. During November and December a new set of priorities, programmes, a publication and website are being launched as part of a redeveloped strategy.

“I encourage staff to get involved in this first campaign” said Julian. “It take a only a few minutes of your time but will help recognise and profile what is happening across the University ahead of a range of additional engagement opportunities we have planned”.

You can add some text, an image or weblink to the makeadifferencemcr blog.

If you use twitter, please follow @SocialResponUoM and use the hashtag #makeadifferencemcr to join the conversation.