Skills
Inspiring students, citizens and communities to address sustainability challenges through knowledge and skills required to understand problems and create solutions to them.
The Skills theme is equipping learners and communities with the green skills and competencies needed to create a sustainable future. We believe that education is central to collective climate action: to make meaningful change, people must understand both the visible challenges, such as extreme weather and plastic waste, and the less tangible but equally urgent threats of biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation and the greenhouse effect. Building this understanding requires new ways of thinking that connect environmental systems with the diverse human actions that shape them.
Our goal is to provide innovative, interdisciplinary and accessible education that translates world-leading sustainability research into practice. We aim to reach work with students in Manchester and beyond, as well as professionals, citizens and communities worldwide, through approaches such as applied learning, distance learning, continuing professional development and living labs. By bridging research, teaching and action, we will cultivate not only knowledge but also the practical competencies and professional capacities needed to deliver a just and sustainable transition. In doing so, the Skills theme will empower people everywhere to contribute to a more resilient and equitable future.
Key Institutes and Centres:
- Institute of Teaching and Learning
- University Living Lab
- UNESCO City of Life Long Learning partnership
- Greater Manchester Civic University Board
- University College for Interdisciplinary Learning
Case Studies
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Creating a Sustainable World
Informing: Our flagship interdisciplinary course, ‘Creating a Sustainable World’, offers a useful case study, bringing contributions from more than 80 academics together to address all 17 of the United Nations SDGs. It has been offered to students all over the world.
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University Living Lab
Inspiring: Our award winning University Living Lab allows organisations from around the planet to set student projects. The Lab has helped hundreds of organisations access the knowledge and skills or our students, while also helping hundreds of our students understand how to make change and to get jobs in the sustainability sector.
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Skills Lead
Prof Jennifer O’Brien, Academic Lead for Sustainability Teaching and Learning at The University of Manchester and Honorary Fellow of the Manchester Institute of Teaching and Learning.
Jen directs the University Living Lab which links applied research needed by organisations with students who can undertake it for their assessment to effect change. Working with Education for Sustainable Development particularly through the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, Jen believes that students are a huge force for change. A development geographer by training, Jen’s interdisciplinary research focuses on sustainable development, particularly within marginalised communities. Stemming from her research, Jen is interested in the intersection between innovative pedagogy and independent field or applied research. Jen inspires and equips learners to ethically address challenges of sustainability, inequality and social justice to affect positive change.