University of Manchester 

The University of Manchester is a public research university in Manchester, England, with its main campus south of the city centre on Oxford Road. It is a red brick university, a product of the civic university movement of the late 19th century. The current institution was formed in 2004 through the merger of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) and the Victoria University of Manchester. This merger followed a century of close collaboration between the two institutions.

UMIST traced its origins to the Manchester Mechanics' Institution, founded in 1824. The present University of Manchester regards this date, alongside that of the foundation of the ancestor of the Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, one of the predecessor institutions of the Victoria University of Manchester, as its official foundation year. The founders of the Mechanics' Institution believed that all professions depended, to some extent, on scientific principles. The institute therefore taught working individuals those branches of science relevant to their existing occupations, in the belief that practical application would encourage innovation and advancement within those fields. The Victoria University of Manchester was founded in 1851 as Owens College. Academic research undertaken by the university has been published via the Manchester University Press since 1904.