World-Class Sporting Facilities
We are equipped to explore, analyse, understand and compete – all in the heart of a city that lives and breathes sport.
Facilities
Built to excel
Our Institute of Sport is built to push boundaries. To redefine elite performance. To test and teach the latest ideas across a variety of disciplines. To explore human mechanics and social trends. To offer new opportunities for participation, research and collaboration. Across our campus, in the heart of a truly sporting city, we have unrivalled facilities across a range of purpose-built sites. With everything from advanced imaging equipment and state-of-the-art teaching spaces, to 3D performance capture and indoor 3G pitches, we are equipped to help you go far in sport.
Whether we’re investigating muscle function during ageing or helping elite athletes to acclimatise for competitions: the latest £26m addition to our campus enables us to interrogate movement through a multitude of approaches.
With an extensive collection of facilities, The Institute of Sport Building is well-equipped to explore issues in health, movement, and sporting performance.
Alongside specialist laboratories for assessing the intricacies of movement and muscle function, you will find an eye-tracking and clinical suite, as well as cutting-edge scanners like our 3 Tesla MRI scanner and x-ray scanner which allows the assessment of an array of body tissues and function, and body composition.
The Institute of Sport building also houses an environmental chamber that enables us to simulate extreme conditions, and a variety of flexible teaching spaces and computer labs, equipped with high-standard audio-visual equipment and software to enhance our teaching, meetings, and events.
As an Institute built on interdisciplinary collaboration, we’re lucky to have the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School on our doorstep. It’s not only triple accredited – putting it among the best business schools in the world – but it’s also a prime location for studying and researching sport. As well as a collection of collaborative meeting spaces, classrooms and IT suites, it’s also home to our Sport Policy Unit, MMU Sport’s offices, a range of sport-focused events throughout the academic year and the University’s first meat-free eatery – the GROW café, a perfect place for athletes to refuel.
Sport and health go hand in hand. So it’s hardly surprising that the Institute collaborates with colleagues across the Faculty of Health and Education to deliver teaching, conduct research and work with industry. The Manchester Institute of Health and Performance offers a world-class healthcare facility with modern diagnostic technology for professional athletes and members of the public– a fitting base for sport medicine studies. Our Food and Nutrition department is just as well equipped, with its own bakery and product development kitchen, together with BodPod for testing body composition and laboratories for testing food quality.
An athlete’s apparel is vital equipment – another chance to find a competitive edge and improve performance. Manchester Fashion Institute is equipped to design, investigate and develop every marginal gain clothing can offer, with an extensive collection of industry-standard facilities. So, as well as an array of cutting-edge 3D virtual design software, the institute has studio spaces and sewing rooms housing a wide array of specialist machinery and equipment needed to construct sportswear, including a wide variety of coverseam and flatlock machines. We also have a textile testing laboratory with the equipment for measuring everything from impact resistance and the bursting strength of materials to examining comfort properties such as air and water permeability and thermal insulation.
Manchester Fashion Institute is home to 3D whole body scanning equipment for designing precision-fit apparel, heat press machinery, advanced joining technology such as ultrasonic welding equipment and also adhesive bonding technology to enhance comfort and minimise drag. Other equipment includes CO₂ laser cutting and etching machinery to enable the cutting and development of complex design patterning on various materials.
The Manchester Movement Unit is a specialist physiotherapy clinic that harnesses both the incredible expertise in our team and the excellent facilities on our campus to provide our wider community with state-of-the-art services. With a wealth of experience in assessing and combatting all sorts of issues – from sports injuries to stress-related conditions – we offer evidence-based cutting-edge treatments, delivered from experts in the field. Our team also works closely with the University’s elite sport scholars, operating as a medical centre for the Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme and providing physiotherapy support to Manchester-based netball team, Manchester Thunder.
Our Platt Lane Sports Complex offers our students, our elite partners and our community a range of professional-standard facilities, for everything from competition and coaching, to conditioning and conferencing.
Within barely a minute’s walk from the John Dalton building, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, All Saints park and the Manchester Aquatics Centre, Sugden Sports Centre offers all you need to get active – from basketball and squash courts, to a spin studio, full gym and both indoor and outdoor football pitches. It’s all here, right on our doorstep.
Contact us
If you have an enquiry related to the work we do or how you can get involved, get in touch. Our office hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 4.30pm. We aim to respond to all enquiries within three working days.