What Does "Manchesterism" Mean for Greater Manchester's Universities?
It has been an extraordinary few months for Greater Manchester. The city-region has found itself at the centre of growing national conversation about the factors behind its economic success, and what other places might learn from its approach.
In Monday’s speech at the People’s History Museum, Andy Burnham placed the city-region firmly in the spotlight once again as he set out his case for what he calls “Manchesterism: a vision for good growth”.
At its heart, Manchesterism is built on a simple idea: that economic growth and social progress should go hand in hand, with deliberate policy to ensure residents and communities share in the benefits of growth.
Delivering on it, Burnham argued, has depended on the "Greater Manchester way" – bringing together partners from across the public, private, community, voluntary, academic sectors and beyond to work towards shared goals, all "facing the same way" and "pulling in the same direction".
Within that approach, universities have a central role. As Burnham put it, success depends on “placing universities at the heart of local economies and bringing the innovation-led approach through start-ups and scale-ups”.
That argument has been reinforced by a growing body of research examining what is driving Greater Manchester’s economic performance. Increasingly, the evidence points not to any single organisation or intervention, but to the strength of the relationships between institutions and the way they work together. The Manchester Model, published by the Bennett School of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, looked at thirteen years of foreign investment data and found that Manchester is now the most productive large English city outside London. Investors, it notes, cite the city's industry clusters and the strength of its university-industry interface as key reasons for investing, not because of any single institution, but because the connections between universities, industry and investors are unusually well organised and visible.
The Productivity Institute reaches a similar conclusion: it's not the strength of any one organisation, university, business or local authority driving the city-region’s success, but how the whole system has organised itself. Looking at what other parts of the UK might take from the "Manchester model," it points to sustained institutional collaboration, devolved decision-making and long-term strategic planning as the underlying factors.
However, growth brings its own challenges. The Centre for Economic Performance’s report Hive of Talent, which examines skills and productivity in Greater Manchester, highlights that attracting investment is only part of the picture. Retaining the skilled graduates and workers needed to sustain future growth remains a critical challenge.
Greater Manchester currently retains 67% of its graduates, compared with 79% in London. The report argues that improving graduate retention is one of the key ways the city-region could begin to close its productivity gap with the capital, estimating that matching London's retention rate would mean retaining around 180,000 additional skilled workers.
Significantly, the report identifies the Greater Manchester Civic University Board as "an important mechanism for aligning higher education with local economic priorities", recognising the role that partnership between universities and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority can play in supporting the region's long-term ambitions.
As our Chair Jo Purves writes in this year's Civic University Board Annual Report, when facing down our city-region's biggest challenges, "place-based collaboration, done well, is one of the most effective tools we have." Over the past decade, she writes, “Greater Manchester has built a distinctive way of working together that other places now look to and learn from, and universities are part of that”.
The work is far from finished. Retaining graduate talent, ensuring the benefits of growth reach every community and responding to the challenges facing Greater Manchester will require the same long-term partnerships that have helped shape the city-region over the past decade.
Andy Burnham, then Mayor of Greater Manchester, launching the Greater Manchester Civic University Agreement in 2021.
Whatever name it goes by, one lesson emerges consistently from the evidence. Greater Manchester's success has been built not by any one institution or intervention, but by organisations working together with a shared commitment to place. Universities will continue to play an important role in that story, not only through education and research, but as civic partners working alongside government, employers, colleges, businesses and communities to help shape Greater Manchester's future.
Read the full reports here:
The Manchester Model, Bennett School of Public Policy, University of Cambridge
UK-Wide Growth and Development: Insights from the ‘Manchester Model, P. McCann, R. Ortega-Argilés (2026), The Productivity Institute.
Hive of Talent: What Would It Take to Raise Skills and Productivity in Greater Manchester? by Aadya Bahl and Henry Overman, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
