Visit cements partnership with leading French institutions

The University of Kent was delighted to host colleagues from the École des Hautes Études Internationales et Politiques (HEIP), and its “sister” institution, ECE Ecole d’Ingénieurs to the Canterbury campus last week.

The visiting delegation comprised Julie Pidell, Director of International Relations, Dr Diane Le Béguec, Director of Studies, and Elise Lefèvre, International Coordinator. HEIP and ECE are both members of INSEEC U, a leading French private education group with campuses in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Chambéry, London, Monaco, Geneva, San Francisco and Shanghai. 

The two-day visit took place on Wednesday 17 and Thursday 18 July 2019. The first day involved meetings with Professor Jeremy Carrette, Dean for Europe, Professor Peter Brown, Academic Director, Paris School of Arts and Culture, Professor Gaynor Johnson, Professor of International History, School of History and Dr Adrian Pabst, Head of the School of Politics and International Relations. This was in the context of the existing links between HEIP and Kent’s School of Politics and International Relations, with activities such as staff and student exchange and a dual master’s degree in Diplomacy currently under development. Possibilities to develop further links with the School of History and the Paris School of Arts and Culture were also explored. 

The second day of the visit provided an opportunity for our guests to meet with Dr Peter Kenny, Dr Michael Kampouridis and Dr Caroline Li from the School of Computing. The School has an established and fruitful partnership with ECE Ecole d’Ingénieurs which facilitates the admission of ECE students into master’s degree programmes in the School of Computing. Once such student, Julie Tiercelin, is currently completing her MSc in Advanced Computer Science (Cloud Computing and Big Data) at Kent and was therefore able to join School of Computing colleagues in hosting the visitors.

The visit was a great success and we look forward to developing further links with HEIP, ECE and the wider INSEEC U group.

For more information about this and other international partnership activities please contact internationalpartnerships@kent.ac.uk.