Manchester Technology Quarter (MTQ)

MTQ is a concept developed to describe the exciting blend of research, Incubation and commercial activity that exists in a very important quadrant within the University of Manchester campus.

In particular, the Manchester Bioscience Incubator and the Core Technology Facility sit at the heart of an exciting cluster that generates ideas and intellectual property. The University of Manchester’s Faculties of Life Sciences, Medical and Humans Sciences and Engineering & Physical Sciences together with the IP commercialisation company for these Faculties, UMIP Limited, are all proximally located in the Quarter. Also, within close proximity is the Central Manchester Health Trust, with its array of clinics and research centres in Medicine, the innovation management team of Trustech and the Northwest Genetics Knowledge Park.

This has created an exciting Biotechnology and Hi-Tech cluster right in the heart of the University of Manchester campus and there is no doubt that the Manchester Bioscience Incubator and the Core Technology Facility play an important role in harnessing these activities.

In addition to the Bioscience-based activities, there are significant Hi-Tech research activities that are complementary and relevant to the Manchester Technology Quarter. These include a world class Materials Science Centre. The School is the largest single Materials focus in any European University. In addition, the Organic Materials Centre (OMIC) also has a commercial focus and interests in assisting SME’s. OMIC is a UK government supported University Innovation Centre for the speciality organic materials and polymer industries, and is bridging the gap between the knowledge which UK Universities generate and that which businesses need in order to innovate and grow.

Furthermore, the School of Chemistry (from which Nanoco Technologies Ltd. spun out) has a growing reputation for work at the academic–commercial interface. The Manchester Technology Quarter has recently had two new facilities enter into the network; the MIB (Manchester Interdisciplinary Centre) and the Photonics Institute. The MIB is a new type of university Research Institute that has been designed to enable our academic community to explore specific areas of interdisciplinary quantitative bioscience at the highest level, largely through the efforts of multidisciplinary research teams.

The newly opened Photonics Institute will also play a key role in the interface between Bioscience and Hi-Tech.

The Manchester Technology Quarter is growing rapidly and is making a significant contribution to both the University of Manchester’s drive towards academic research excellence, and also to the commercial SME clusters that are ideally positioned in both the Bioscience Incubator and the Core Technology Facility, to engage with this highly reputable Centre of Excellence.