With MIPIM 2025 on the horizon, Katrina Davis, our director of communications and culture here at Civic, sat down with Marketing Manchester to share why we have chosen to support the Manchester Invest Partnership at MIPIM, her experiences attending the conference and why coming together as a whole city-region is crucial at these events if we are to drive change.

Manchester has seen transformational change over the last two decades, as evidenced by our ever-changing skyline, diverse economy and pipeline of opportunity. At the heart of this change is Greater Manchester’s collaborative network of local authorities and private sector partners that pioneer change through placemaking. With a new 10-year plan for growth and the foundations in place, Greater Manchester is ready to position itself as the UK’s leading growth opportunity, with the overarching ambition to make the city-region a greener, fairer and more prosperous region.

Why has Civic chosen to attend MIPIM with the Manchester Invest Partnership?

At the start of our journey, Civic Engineers was founded in the city, and we were also, when we were very young, a growth company-funded organisation. The city is our home. We’ve got studios across the UK and Ireland now, but we were founded here, and we’ve worked on key projects across the city. And so, we have really strong links to the city and the wider, Greater Manchester area.

One of the main reasons we attend is about the power of collaboration. Together, we can all have a greater impact. Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do and you can’t work in isolation. If, as a city-region, we can all work together and we know each other well and understand everybody’s capabilities, we can have an even greater, more positive impact. If we can show a united front, private and public, we can help attract investors and investment into the city.

What are your main priorities for MIPIM 2025?

For us, the focus will be on how we can collaborate more meaningfully to address the urgent issues presented by climate change. To make real progress, we need to move beyond isolated efforts and embrace a more open exchange of ideas and insights. One way to do so is to help showcase some of our work through the cities where we work. We’re attending with Manchester and our director Gareth Atkinson is attending with London, and we share best practice from our teams across the wider UK and Ireland as well. There’s a chance for us to talk about Civic and how our business has changed because we’ve been through a period of growth and acquisition as well, so we’re well positioned to respond to these challenges through system thinking. We’re doing a lot more now than we ever did, and working in additional areas such as heritage and archaeology, geoconsultancy, sustainability, and place-based consultancy.

But, it’s also about showcasing the city, the projects and some of the amazing work that’s going on that really is best practice. For example, our CEO Stephen is speaking on the Manchester Stand about the Strangeways Strategic Regeneration Framework, which is a transformational, very complex project, but it shows the boldness and forward-thinking attitudes of both Salford and Manchester City Council.

What are you most looking forward to at MIPIM 2025?

The thing that I’m looking forward to is the chance conversations that happen. You don’t know who you’re going to end up sitting next to on the plane or next to at dinner, and I think some of those chance conversations and the little MIPIM surprises can be helpful to both your business and also for fostering a culture of genuine collaboration.

You can read the full interview here.

This year, our CEO Stephen O’Malley, Katrina Davis, our director of communications and culture, and Gareth Atkinson, director at Civic Engineers, will represent Civic in Cannes. If you’re going too, we’d love to hear from you, so please reach out to Katrina@team-civic.com to arrange a catch up with our team.