Urban Health gets the boost it needs with The University’s ‘Investing in Success’ initiative.

The £1 million pilot scheme was set up by The University of Manchester “to identify and support individual members of staff - from across the University, irrespective of grade or length of service” and aimed to give enthusiastic and passionate university staff the financial leg up they needed to expand their knowledge and further their professional career.

Through the scheme, Dr Arpana Verma and her department: Manchester Urban Collaboration on Health (MUCH), Centre for Epidemiology in the Institute of Population Health have been given the chance to collaborate with leading health professionals from the World Health Organisation (WHO), Kobe Centre.

MUCH staff showcased their wide array of projects undertaken in local, national and international settings. The department helped to boost the profile of the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre (MAHSC) and the University of Manchester to promote future collaborations and were provided with opportunities for training and work placements, which were vital for staff development.

The grant was also invaluable in forming a close working relationship with the WHO Kobe team and has subsequently resulted in the Director of the WHO Kobe Centre, Alex Ross, giving a keynote speech at the University’s annual Festival of Public Health UK - which was an enormous success.

In addition, Alex Ross has been named as a plenary speaker at the forthcoming 11th International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH 2014) – a conference the MUCH team are currently organising in collaboration with the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI), Global Urban Research Centre (GURC) and cities@manchester.

The conference – considered the world’s premier international forum for information exchange between urban health stakeholders – will take place between the 4th and the 7th of March 2014 at Manchester Central Convention Centre and is open to anyone with an interest in urban health.