sentences:  In 2013 Manchester was ranked 6th in the UK for quality of life, according to a rating of the UK's 12 largest cities.Manchester is considered to be a 'beta -' global city, rated as the joint second most globally influential city in the UK after London with Birmingham.The region is now an economic knowledge-led centre, with research and enterprise clustered around the University of Manchester, where research ranked as the third most powerful in the UK behind Cambridge and Oxford.