We talk to the winners of the new ‘Team Achievement’ category in our annual Vivensa Academy Excellence Awards – the Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group (MUARG). Here, members share their approach to co-production, plans for their 10th anniversary celebration and their hopes for the future of the research group.
We were delighted to recognise Professor Nathan Davies, Dr Claire McDonald, Dr Mahmoud Bukar Maina and Manchester Urban Ageing Research Group as the 2026 Vivensa Academy Excellence Award holders.
We have partnered with Sense about Science to offer our Academy members who are early career researchers free priority places on their Voice of Young Science Programme.
We are offering 25 Academy members a funded place on First Create The Media’s Ready TEDdy Go! storytelling and presenting workshop.
Back in August 2025 we announced that we were funding five places for Vivensa Academy members to join Zinc’s Inflection Programme. As the 12-week interdisciplinary programme has just finished, we spoke with the five Academy members we funded.
Funding support for individuals wishing to pursue a PhD by Publication.
Following our sixth round of Ignition Fund awards we have provided general feedback for those who were unsuccessful.
Read our general feedback on on the Rising Star and Senior Leader nominations to the 2025/26 Vivensa Academy Excellence Awards.
Read our general feedback on on the Team Achievement nominations to the 2025/26 Vivensa Academy Excellence Awards.
At the Vivensa Foundation, we believe in funding people as well as projects. That’s why we started the Capability Development Programme – to give community-led organisations working with older people the tools they need to succeed: practical learning, leadership development, strategic thinking time and a £15k grant to put their ideas into action.
Here are a few of the ways in which the Academy is providing support to encourage nurses, allied health professionals and care home staff into research.
We spoke with Mariana Borsa, recently appointed Assistant Professor and group leader at the University of Basel, and Stuart Gray, Professor of Muscle and Metabolic Health at the University of Glasgow, about what it’s like to sit on our Research Grants Committee.