Delegates at last month’s MIPIM international property conference in Cannes heard Manchester launch a bid to become one of the world’s ‘science cities’, harnessing world-class research in a range of fields to the private sector.

Mike Emmerich, chief executive of New Economy, a commission established by The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities to help create economic growth and prosperity for Manchester, said Manchester already had huge resources in its leading universities, biotech firms and initiatives like Manchester Science Parks, but warned that the city was at the start of a journey in a highly competitive sector. He added: “The issue now is how we link science and commercial potential.

“Do people understand Manchester as a science city today? he asked. “No – and yet that is what it has always been. One hundred years ago it was seen as a city where science drove the economy. The challenge today is to turn the investment we have heard about into jobs and growth”.

North West house sales lifted to a three-year high in March, while prices also saw a ‘marked’ turnaround, according to the latest Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) report.

Lenders and estate agents have been reporting signs of a tentative housing market recovery following the launch of the Government’s Funding for Lending scheme last August, which has prompted an increase in mortgage availability and is seeing lenders continue to slash their rates.

Peter Bolton King, RICS’ Global Residential Director, adds: ‘A buoyant, healthy property market is central to economic recovery and, while these are still very much early signs, it is encouraging that sales are beginning to pick up.’

A global finance executive from the Netherlands has relocated to a waterside apartment in Manchester city centre with help from Beeby Relocation.

Barbara Beeby was contracted in to manage the home search and support package by a leading London-based relocation company. Based in Manchester, Barbara is a freelance relocation consultant specialising in the North West region.

Barbara started the relocation assignment by working through the background documents. The young executive and his partner were moving to Manchester from their home in Holland within a month. He was due to start work on a short-term secondment at his firm’s UK office in Salford Quays and was looking for a fully furnished one bedroom apartment to rent. The couple had expressed an interest in viewing properties in a residential area to the south of Manchester and also in the city centre.

After researching the Manchester property market and contacting local letting agents, Barbara scheduled a day of viewings. The Dutch couple were on a short visit to the UK when she met them at their hotel in Salford Quays.

Barbara says: “We spent the morning viewing properties in a popular south Manchester suburb. The couple liked one of properties, which was in a former residential home that had been converted into modern apartments. However the area lacked a tram route into Manchester, making it a long commute by public transport to Salford Quays.”

During the afternoon, Barbara had arranged viewings of apartments in the city centre. “As they were a young couple, I felt they might appreciate the kind of lifestyle that city living offers,” she says. “I chose vibrant areas, close to shops, bars and restaurants, that would allow them to enjoy life outside work. My client’s partner was giving up her job to accompany him during his secondment, so it was very important for her to be close to amenities and places of interest to occupy her time during the day.”

The couple viewed a one bedroom property in a new development at the heart of Manchester’s former industrial centre. Situated in a conservation area overlooking the canal basin, the apartment was within walking distance of the tram stop to Salford Quays.

Barbara says: “When we viewed the one bedroom apartment, it was tenanted and not in a particularly tidy state. The letting agent then showed us a two bedroom apartment on a higher floor in the same building, which was not on our schedule. It was furnished to a high specification and ready to move into, but it was actually over my client’s budget.”

The vibrancy of the area and appealing prospect of city centre living persuaded him to negotiate on the budget with his employer. The couple moved into the two bedroom apartment just over two weeks after the initial viewing.

Barbara was also assigned by the relocation company to undertake a Check In service before the new tenants moved in. This involved making a thorough assessment of the state of the property with the tenant, as well as checking and photographing items against the letting agency’s full inventory.

Barbara says: “This assignment really demonstrates that you can only get a true feel for an area by visiting it in person. Although the young Dutch couple had expressed an interest in living in a suburban area, I knew that public transport might be an issue. When they were able to compare it to city centre living, they were bowled over by the vibrant urban lifestyle on offer and the ease of commuting.”

House prices posted their biggest year-on-year growth in more than two years in February as the market continued to improve, reported Halifax.

Various studies have reported improvements to the housing market since the government started the Funding for Lending scheme last August to boost lending. Since then the number of mortgages on the market has increased by around one third, and lenders are offering some of their cheapest ever mortgage rates.

Halifax also pointed to HM Revenue and Customs figures which show that house sales have been steadily lifting in recent months.

Martin Ellis, housing economist at Halifax, said: “We expect to see a national increase in house prices over the course of 2013. Weak income growth and continuing below-trend economic growth, however, are likely to remain significant constraints on housing demand.”

Virgin Atlantic’s first-ever domestic flight service, to be known as Little Red, will operate a four-times-a-day Heathrow to Manchester service from the end of March. The company’s new domestic service will have a total of 26 daily flights between London Heathrow, Manchester, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson said; “Little Red represents the next step on the journey as we go head to head with British Airways to provide domestic flights that deliver Virgin Atlantic’s rock and roll spirit as well as real value for money.”

The biennial Manchester International Festival, which will take place this year from 4 July to 24 July, is billed as the world’s only festival of original new work and special events.

Highlights of the events programme include Kenneth Branagh as Macbeth and a play written by Matt Charman exploring chess player Garry Kasparov’s battle with the supercomputer Deep Blue.

Festival director Alex Poots said: “These are difficult financial times, but in times of crisis communities do best when they pull together. I strongly believe in the social and economic benefits of a continued investment in culture and the arts, regionally, nationally and internationally.”

Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, added: “The continuing partnership between the public and private sectors in Manchester to deliver MIF is indicative of the innovative way in which this city does business.”

The University of Manchester is among the 50 most prestigious universities in the world, according to the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings. Listed 47, the University is one of only nine UK universities to feature in the top 100.

The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings employ the world’s largest invitation-only academic opinion survey, based on a staggering 16,639 responses, to provide the definitive list of the top 100 most powerful global university brands. The reputation league table is based on nothing more than subjective judgement – but it is the considered expert judgement of senior, published academics – the people best placed to know the most about excellence in our universities.

Research has shown that a university’s reputation is the top priority (over location or even salary) for academics moving jobs, and it is the number one consideration for internationally mobile students, above tuition fees and course content. It can also be key to attracting collaborative partnerships and funding from alumni, philanthropists and industry.

A Manchester university recently hired Beeby Relocation to support a new member of staff and his family in their move from the United States to the North West. The university considers relocation support to be an essential element in attracting senior academic staff from outside the UK.

As a Manchester-based relocation consultant specialising in the North West region, Barbara Beeby was contracted in to manage the support package. Barbara first met the professor and his family when they arrived at Manchester Airport for a short visit to the UK.

Barbara says: “I met the professor, his wife and daughter at the airport and we started with an Orientation Day tour. I took the family to look at a handful of residential areas in South Manchester and Cheshire.”

She adds: “An Orientation Day can form a key part of the home search process. An area might look fine on the internet, but it’s not until an assignee visits and gets a feel for a place that they can decide whether they could really live there.”

One of the main home search criteria for the US family concerned the couple’s daughter and her schooling. During the family’s first visit she was due to sit the entrance examination for one of Manchester’s leading independent schools.

The family returned to the US following the Orientation Day and the professor later advised Barbara that his daughter had secured a place at their chosen school. This gave a focus to the home search, as it was important for the new home to be on the school bus route.

Barbara researched the route of the school bus and identified two possible areas that the family had approved of on the Orientation Day almost three months earlier. After researching the property market in both areas and contacting local letting agents, she scheduled two days of viewings with the professor and his wife.

The family had expressed a preference for an unfurnished three or four bedroom rental property with a garden, in an area that was close to local shops. As well as being conveniently located for the school bus route, it needed to have a good public transport link to Manchester city centre for the professor’s commute to university.

Barbara says: “The first location was a popular residential area on the outskirts of the city, but it lacked a tram route into Manchester and the bus journey was long. The second area we looked at was a Cheshire town which was further from the city centre but had excellent public transport links.”

The professor and his wife chose a property in the Cheshire town on day two of the home search. The three bedroom house was situated just five minutes’ walk from the bustling town centre and local railway station, putting the university within a 30-minute commute.

The family moved into the property within three months. When Barbara contacted them after they had settled in they confirmed that they liked the area, were happy with the school and found the transportation easy.

Barbara says: “There is no doubt that the Orientation Tour enabled this relocating family to get a good feel for possible areas where they might live, well before they had to make a choice. This gave them time to weigh up the relative merits of each area and ultimately make a well-informed decision.”

When a global electronics firm was looking to transfer an employee from China to its UK manufacturing facility in Cheshire, the company instructed a leading London-based relocation company to manage the move. As a freelance consultant specialising in the North West region, Barbara Beeby was contracted in to manage the home search.

Barbara started the relocation assignment by working through the background documents. The electronics company employee and his family had never lived outside China. He had just taken up his new post in the UK and was living at a local hotel, with his wife and four-year-old daughter due join him in two weeks’ time. It was very important for him to find accommodation that was within walking distance of his workplace and close to a nursery that would feed into a good local primary school.

Barbara says: “This was a challenging assignment and I was determined to find the best possible outcome for this young family. There was clearly a time pressure, which restricted the pool of potential properties to those that were immediately available. The emphasis on being close to work and a good school further limited the choice.”

After researching the property market in the area and contacting local letting agents, Barbara scheduled a day of viewings and arranged to meet the assignee.

“With foreign assignees I can add extra value by introducing them to some cultural aspects of living in the UK, explaining our different customs, systems and language,” says Barbara. “As we view the properties together they can question and talk things through, so they develop a better understanding of what life might be like in their chosen area.”

A suitable property was found on the first day of searching, but Barbara later learned that it had fallen through because the landlord would not accept a company let. A further viewing day was arranged and happily the last property of the day proved to be a big hit.

Barbara Beeby says: “I had a good feeling about the final property. We hadn’t included it in our original search as it was a four bedroom detached house and the assignee had specified smaller apartments. But after spending time with him on the viewings I realised that the furnishing and style of the property were also very important. This house was far superior in quality to anything we had viewed previously. It was located on a modern development with good schools nearby and was absolutely immaculate in its presentation. It was also within budget and available to let immediately.”

After the viewings on day two were completed, Barbara reviewed the properties with the assignee, discussing the pros and cons of each potential home. When he informed her that he wished to proceed with letting the four bedroom house, Barbara contacted the relocation company to pick up and continue the process.

Barbara says: “I knew we had a found a strong contender, but the final decision is never my responsibility. The assignee was clearly feeling the pressure, but I was confident that he had been able to make an informed decision and what was, in my opinion, the right choice.”

She adds: “It’s always rewarding to complete a property search and see an assignee happy with their new home. Finding the best home available at the time for each relocation client is what matters to me.”

Dr Farid Khan, co-founder of PharmaKure, which is based in Manchester Science Park, said: “PK-048 was first discovered in the 1980s as a drug candidate for Parkinson’s disease, though it has never been previously tested for Alzheimer’s.

“The drug was tested in human cells and has demonstrated strong inhibition of proteins which are known to cause Alzheimer’s.

“We are now moving into our commercialisation phase with a view to licensing and forging partnerships.”

Over the past year PharmaKure has recruited five staff.  It attributes its ongoing success to its location in Manchester.

Khan added: “There is a nurturing ‘eco-system’ at Manchester Science Park which allows a start-up to rapidly develop and network with other companies. One of the problems which a small biotech company faces is the recruitment of suitably qualified staff, but the networking that MSP opened for us has allowed us to find and appoint key management staff from the pharmaceutical industry.”