What does innovation look like when it begins not in a laboratory or boardroom, but with communities, neighbourhoods and the assets they alr

As part of The University of Manchester’s Festival of Innovation, Manchester Museum’s Top Floor will host award-winning social enterprise Sow the City for a deep dive into their journey from packets of seeds and bags of compost to becoming a leading force for urban greening across Manchester.

Sow the City will explore how they have used social innovation, Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) and the power of nature to build momentum for change. Through stories from communities across Manchester, they will demonstrate how recognising and investing in the strengths, knowledge and creativity already present within some of our most disadvantaged neighbourhoods can generate new responses to some of society’s biggest challenges – from climate change and biodiversity loss to inequality, health and wellbeing.

The event reflects the wider purpose of Manchester Museum’s Top Floor, a space dedicated to environmental action and social justice and shaped through partnership with organisations working across Greater Manchester. The Top Floor seeks to widen our understanding of where innovation happens and who gets to be an innovator: bringing community knowledge, grassroots action, social enterprise and lived experience into conversation with research and institutional expertise.

Expect practical ideas, moving stories and an optimistic exploration of what can happen when innovation is rooted in place, people and possibility.

Thursday 8th October 10-12pm, Manchester Museum Top Floor Classroom

Description supplied by the event organiser.