Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine: Making a difference

A summary of the impact of the Centre’s training schemes, research and activities.

In addition to training postdoctoral fellows and doctoral students, the Centre offers a Master's-level history of medicine degree, which is also available for intercalating medical students. This is part of a wider involvement with the Medical School, where 40 students each year undertake research projects with Centre staff. They spend three weeks on primary research and writing, and tend to do projects linked to their clinical interests. Topics studied include childhood depression, parasitic worms across the world through time, and pharmaceutical companies. Staff also teach history of medicine courses to undergraduates in the University, including innovative option modules such as 'Baker Street to CSI: The history of forensic medicine'.

The Centre was one of the first history of medicine groups to have a dedicated outreach post to identify, meet and engage with new audiences. The programme, which is currently led by Dr Vicky Long, involves a wide range of events, from designing and running workshops to liaising with the national media. The academics have found that engaging with the public can feed back into research, for example when audience members offer stories of patient experiences, or contacts or historical material.

The field of public health is a good example of the links between research and outreach at the Manchester Centre. Staff have published on the public health movement of the nineteenth century, which focused on industrial towns such as Manchester. The Manchester Primary Care Trust has funded a project on recent local issues in public health. The results of this work were brought to school audiences at the 'Our Kid' events, organised in Manchester by Nowgen to mark the 60th anniversary of the NHS in 2008; they were also instrumental in raising the profile of public health as a university discipline, and the Centre is involved with development and research plans. The Centre also runs contemporary historical seminars on Mental Health and on the NHS, which bring together a wide range of local academics and practitioners.

The outreach work was a major input to the Manchester Histories Festival that filled the Town Hall for two days in March 2009. This pioneering venture looks set to become a biennial event, bringing together the city's universities and cultural institutions, internationally recognised historians, enthusiasts, local groups, and lots of schools.