Manchester Debating Union

Award winning society, winner of the Best Politics and Debate Society 2011, UMSU Award.

About the MDU

The Manchester Debating Union or MDU is the debating society for Manchester Universities. Most of our members are from the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University, but we accept members from all of Manchester’s institutes of higher education including the Royal Northern College of Music, The University of Salford and BPP Courses. The MDU was founded in 1996 and has since grown to one of the UK’s most active debating societies.

We organise the participation of Manchester students in intervarsity debating competitions, as well as arranging public debates and hosting our own competitions at university and school level. On top of that we provide debate training to 12 comprehensive schools in the Manchester area in partnership with the University’s widening participation program, supply judges to out rounds of the Oxford and Cambridge schools competitions and organise socials for our members.

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Get Involved

Our goal at the MDU is to open up debate and public speaking to everyone. We want as many people as possible to get the chance to see great public speaking and learn how to express their own ideas. We have a huge range of activities across the year, check out our Facebook page and calendar for details on what exactly is coming up. Some of our regular activities include:

Tuesday Training: An opportunity to improve your own speaking skills, generally there'll be a seminar on an aspect of debating and then we break off in to small group sessions where you can practice debating without the pressure of an audience. More>>>

Thursday Debates: Experienced speakers from the MDU, representatives of student societies and invited experts, academics and politicians debate topical issues. If you want to get involved you can raise questions from the floor or just sit back and watch. More >>>

Competitions: Most universities that debate hold their own competitions. (Check out the British Debate Calendar). They range from small close to home competitions to world championships with a budget of millions and a range of exotic locations. MDU membership entitles you to subsidised attendance at many competitions More>>>

Sponsorship

The MDU is currently looking for sponsorship on many of these activities. If you’re interested in sponsoring us you can contact our treasurer via treasurer@mdu.manchester.ac.uk.