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At the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡, we have been changing how the world works for 125 years. To mark our 125th anniversary this year, our public programme at The Exchange in Birmingham city centre is inviting you to discover our research and innovations rooted in Brum. 

A series of installations is on display throughout 2025 at The Exchange, which brings together generations of people and ideas, working to build a better future for all of us, both now and in the years to come. They focus on three key areas of research from the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡: Maternal Health, Youth Mental Health, and Microplastics, from our past, present, and future. 

These installations are available to explore for free in The Exchange throughout 2025. 

The Past: The legacy of Dame Hilda Lloyd

Our installation, focusing on research from the past, celebrates the lifesaving work of Professor Dame Hilda Lloyd. Professor Lloyd, who was from Birmingham and studied medicine at the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡, established the obstetrical ‘Flying Squads’ in 1936. 

These teams provided emergency care to underserved communities in the city, saving the lives of many mothers and babies in the process. Her flying squads, as well as offering obstetric care, could carry out resuscitations and blood transfusions, a crucial element of life-saving work when dealing with haemorrhage or complications in birth or caused by dangerous backstreet abortions. 

In 1944, she became the first female professor at the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡ and then in 1949 became the first woman president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and she was a strong proponent of women joining the medical profession.

These days, the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡ is still developing lifesaving research and treatment for expectant mothers and their infants. The BSOTS project (Birmingham Symptom-Specific Obstetric Triage System), which streamlines emergency care by providing a quick assessment now adopted in over 120 maternity units. E-MOTIVE is a global project tackling postpartum haemorrhage (PPH)—affecting 1 in 5 women in Birmingham and tragically claiming a woman’s life every few minutes worldwide. The University is co-leading crucial research to tackle maternity inequalities faced by mothers and babies across the UK, improving care before, during, and after pregnancy, as part of the NIHR Challenge Maternal Disparities Consortium.

The Present: Understanding how to protect young people from social media and smartphones

One of the biggest and most complex issues facing society today is how to protect young people from the potential harms accessible through their smartphones and social media. Young people today are navigating unprecedented mental health challenges, often in part due to things they see and experience online, and this is no different for young people in Birmingham.

Our second installation focuses on current research from Dr Victoria Goodyear and Professor Miranda Pallan’s Smart Schools project. The project explores how smartphone bans in schools impact the mental health and school performance of young people.

Their research, which has been widely covered in the news, found that bans on smartphones in schools alone are not enough to tackle the negative impacts of phone and social media use in young people. The study is the first of its kind, and showed that restrictive school policies don’t lead to lower phone and social media use overall, nor better outcomes among students.

As well as smartphone use in young people, the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡ explores different areas of research into how young people can ‘live healthily’ and what real care means in digital spaces.

The Future: Microplastics

Microplastics are a recently discovered threat to our environment and potentially our health. It is an issue that has been coming down the track since the invention of Parkesine, the first manufactured plastic, which was made in Birmingham. There is still so much more to learn about microplastics and the effect they can have on our world and us, especially as climate change and water scarcity continue to accelerate, and access to clean and fresh water becomes more unequal.

The final installation focuses on the future of microplastics research. Professor Stefan Krause has been exploring the transport and breakdown of plastics in freshwater systems. As part of the Birmingham Plastics Network, Stefan’s work is a crucial element of a wider programme of research that we are doing to develop and establish new ways to tackle the challenge of plastics pollution, in order to reduce their impact on our environment.

One year of installations is not enough time or space to detail every piece of world-changing research that the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡ has led, or contributed to. But these are three of the biggest challenges facing us today, and three major ways our research community has, is, and will meet them head on, to change the world for the better.