Our achievements

The University of Manchester has a rich academic heritage, with 25 Nobel laureates among our current and former staff and students.

Manchester was the birthplace of the nuclear age, when Ernest Rutherford's pioneering research led to the splitting of the atom. The computer revolution started here in June 1948 when a machine built by Tom Kilburn and Sir Freddie Williams, known affectionately as 'The Baby', ran its first stored program.

It was here at the University that economist and logician WS Jevons formulated the principles of modern economics, and it was at our Jodrell Bank site in Cheshire that a young Bernard Lovell built the world's largest steerable radio telescope just after World War II.

Great traditions have also flourished in theology, architecture, mathematics, music, law and many other areas.

The catalogue of virtuosity goes on and on. Many of our current academic staff are world-leaders in their fields and include:

  • biologist and Nobel laureate John Sulston FRS (Institute of Science, Ethics and Innovation);
  • British novelist Jeanette Winterson (Centre for New Writing);
  • physicist and broadcaster Brian Cox (Department of Physics and Astronomy);
  • professors Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 (Department of Physics and Astronomy);
  • historian and broadcaster Michael Wood (School of Arts, Languages and Cultures).