Luke Nield: Reflecting on Inclusive Leadership, Following UoM LGBTQ+ and EDIA Training
Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to take part in two development programmes at the University: the LGBTQ+ Leadership Programme, delivered with On the Level, and the EDIA Champions Training, led by Be What You See Consultancy. Both have genuinely transformed how I think about leadership, allyship, and inclusion in everyday practice.
Freddie Jones, Heather Cockayne and Ro Procter: Celebrating Disability Pride – Creativity, Community and Inclusion at the University of Manchester
This year’s Disability Pride celebrations were united by a simple ambition: to celebrate disabled creativity, amplify disabled voices, and challenge assumptions about disability through culture, community, and inclusive research.
Conor Collins: Queer Up North archive
This summer I am exhibiting a new body of work at HOME, created in response to the Queer Up North archive. The exhibition is called To See and Be Seen. It is about memory. About Manchester. About queer lives that refused to disappear. About what happens when fragments of photographs, flyers, stories and protests survive long enough to become history. Some of the works are joyful. Some are defiant. Some ask difficult questions. All of them begin with a simple thought: What does it mean to be seen? There is a preview : 6pm – 8pm on 7th July at HOME at the Granada Studios (the first and second floor of home)
Exhibition runs July–October. I would be delighted to see some of your faces there: https://www.homemcr.org/whats-on/to-see-and-be-seen-by-conor-collins-dnkx
Dr Antoinette McKane & Dr Swati Sharma: The Hidden Wellbeing Crisis in Research
Behind the pursuit of discovery, many researchers are quietly struggling with wellbeing challenges shaped by academic structures, workplace culture, and personal pressures. This blog post explores three key challenges and prompts reflection on researcher wellbeing as a shared institutional responsibility.
Melanie Price: Wellbeing in June
Wellbeing is a term we hear frequently, and with good reason. It encompasses our physical, social and mental health, and it is encouraging to see how much progress has been made in recognising its importance. Not long ago, many people felt they simply had to “get on with it,” regardless of how challenging life became. 1 in 6 people of employable age experience mental health problems, with 50% of work days lost due to mental health illness.
Rachel Heyes: Digital Accessibility for Professional Services (PS) Colleagues
As PS colleagues, we create and share a wide range of digital content such as emails, documents, forms, presentations, webpages, images, and event information. This content shapes our communication and how people access our resources. Digital accessibility isn’t an add-on; it’s integral to our work.
Heike Holubek: Aromantic Visibility Day 05 June 2026 – Challenges of living in an amato-normative society
In my previous blog I focussed on the grey-sexual part of my identity. This follow up’s topics refers to the grey-romantic aspect of my identity. I was sure from an early age that I was never going to marry, but, of course, everyone thinks you will change your mind, at least once you have met the “right” person. Every nut has its bolt, hasn’t it? Once grown up, matured, etc. every “normal” person will want to settle down with a spouse and start building their nuclear unit…
Aisha Akram and Stephen Doyle: Mental Health Awareness Week (11th – 17th May)
The LGBTQ+ community in the UK experiences disproportionately high levels of poor mental health compared with the wider population. Research consistently demonstrates elevated rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and psychological distress among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals. Importantly, these inequalities are not caused by LGBTQ+ identity itself, but by discrimination, stigma, social exclusion and unequal access to support services.
Andy Porter: Colleague Wellbeing – Men’s Mental Health and Emotional Vocabularies
Following a tragic event in 2025, I took several months away from work to look after my own wellbeing. As anyone who’s ever had to go to the GP and opening up can attest, it felt like a monumentally difficult thing to do. In hindsight, the decision was obviously the correct one and I benefitted from this time in many ways, yet I spent so much time and energy worrying about whether I should take the leap and advocate for myself that it made some of the more significant, immediate, emotions even worse. This worry can be so huge for many of us that often, we simply don’t do take the leap.
The Feast of Pentecost
The feast of Pentecost recalls the day when the Holy Spirit descended upon the followers of Jesus. It is celebrated by Christians fifty days after Easter as a reminder of the active presence of God in our lives, guiding, strengthening and consoling us in the...
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