UMRI 2025: Unlocking Interdisciplinary Research Excellence

The UMRI 2025 Interdisciplinary Research Pump-Prime Call received numerous innovative and collaborative proposals across all disciplines, making the selection process highly competitive.  Thank you to all who collaborated and submitted applications.

We are delighted to introduce the Principal Investigators, categorised by their platform theme:

Creative Manchester Director: John McAuliffe

Priority areas: Creativity, Health and Wellbeing, Creative Industries and Innovation and Civic and Creative Places.

• Clara Dawson School of Arts, Languages and Cultures 

Dead or Alive: Birds in our World

• David Foster School of Engineering

Challenging the impossible: Questioning the reconstruction of ancient Egyptian faces through interdisciplinary collective approaches from digital, medical and arts methods 

• Dharman Jeyasingham School of Health Sciences 

Co-producing inclusive housing and care solutions with older lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people 

Digital Futures Director: Richard Kingston

Priority areas: Digital Cultures, Digital Health, Digital Worlds, Digital Society, and the Digital Economy.

• Katarzyna Cieslik School of Environment, Education and Development 

Platformization of rural Africa: dependency, dispossession and data in the ‘sharing economy’  

• Sokratia Georgaka School of Health Sciences 

Bridging the Gap: AI-Powered Spatial Tumour Profiling of Glioblastoma from Routine H&E Images 

• Simon Harper School of Engineering 

Hypo-cheat Randomised Control Trial Enabler 

Sustainable Futures Directors: Michael Shaver and Helen Holmes

Priority areas: Skills, Resilience, Resources, Net-Zero, Health and Equity.

• Gareth Clay School of Education, Environment and Development

Pan Africa Mining Study   

•  Jaise Kuriakose School of Engineering 

Community-led Energy Renewables 

• Andrew Welfle School of Engineering 

Route 66: Visions for Rapid Decarbonisation of Transport – Exploring Integrated Approaches for Road, Aviation and Maritime

Healthier Futures Director: Nicky Cullum

Priority areas: Healthier Lives, Healthier Places and Healthier Systems.

• Victoria Palin School of Medical Sciences 

Closing the health gap: using technology to improve data transfer to tackle inequalities in CVD-related diagnoses and outcomes

• Gareth Price School of Medical Sciences 

Addressing Cancer Inequalities Through Integrated Clinical and Environmental Data Analysis

Healthier Futures will also be directly supporting a further five awards:

• Camilla Lewis School of Education, Environment and Development

Co-developing interdisciplinary research bids to advance healthy ageing and age-friendly urban regeneration in North Manchester

• Ola Demkowicz School of Education, Environment and Development

Understanding gendered trends in worsening adolescent mental health: Reviewing the evidence and facilitating knowledge exchange

• Abigail Lay School of Medical Sciences

            Epigenetic Risk scores for early prediction of kidney disease in diabetes: 

            A pilot study in Greater Manchester

• Katherine Rogers School of Health Sciences

            Electronic patient records and Deaf BSL users: exploring system potential and health profiles

• Cathy Walton School of Natural Sciences

            Socioeconomic, behavioural and environmental drivers of chikungunya in Africa

Congratulations to the funded research projects and teams. We look forward to the advancements interdisciplinary research will bring to tackle society's most pressing global challenges.

For further funding opportunities, please refer to the webpages:

• FBMH
• FHums
• FSE
• Research Professional Funding Calendar

To discover more from our previous award holders, please visit the UMRI and Case Studies webpages.