Our University has announced it will be hosting Universally Manchester, a celebratory four-day festival to mark its 200th year, welcoming up to 60,000 people to our Oxford Road campus from Thursday, 6 June to Sunday, 9 June 2024.

Festival goers will be able to curate their own varied programme, from behind-the-scenes tours to salon discussions, music, theatre, comedy, art, poetry, wellbeing and more, with something on offer for all ages and interests.

From poetry to physics, music to medicine and computing to creative writing, the festival will have a different focus each day. More than 150 imaginative and immersive events will take place in unexpected places across campus, with events popping up everywhere: labs, concert theatres, outdoor spaces and the University’s award-winning culture hotspots Whitworth Art Gallery and Manchester Museum.

Universally Manchester will acknowledge the University’s global impact; the world firsts, the life-changing discoveries, the music, art, science and creativity, all sparked in Manchester. Many well-known figures from the University’s past, present and future will feature, with renowned physicist and award-winning podcaster Professor Brian Cox, and BAFTA-winning broadcaster, writer and historian Professor David Olusoga, the first to be announced.

It will also celebrate the here and now, creating a platform for current students and graduates to showcase their creativity and ideas.

If you would like to be part of the festival programme, there is still chance to apply. We’re open to contributions of all types, including in-person, online or hybrid formats. Find out more and apply.

And there’s more…  

• In February, our bicentenary lecture podcast series launches with special guests discussing subjects such as health, the environment, community and, of course, education. 
• Made in Manchester, a bicentenary competition asking our students to show what ‘Made in Manchester’ means to them through art, words, sound or video. The deadline is midnight on Sunday, 24 March and three winners, one from each Faculty, will win £750.  
• Our Centre for New Writing’s Micropoetry competition returns for 2024 with the theme ‘200 years of creativity: Manchester’s past, present or future’.
• From 7 to 9 October, the University will host the prestigious THE World Academic Summit, welcoming 500 global leaders in higher education to Manchester.