Dr Arpana Verma is Director of the Manchester Urban Collaboration on Health (MUCH) which is within the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre at the University of Manchester. Her mission is to perform world-class research with her team, applicable to populations locally, nationally and globally. She has recently secured her third major EU grant worth over £600,000 named Urban Health Centre 2.0, a three year project focusing on public health interventions for healthy ageing in cities where she will work closely with the Manchester Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing (MICRA) . She is also responsible for the organisation of several high profile public health conferences including The Festival of Public Health UK and the 11th International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH 2014) which will be taking place between 4th and 7th March 2014.