We continually seek to develop our international research excellence and actively support our academic staff in their global research through conferences and events to enhance their visibility and research reputations across the world.
Research has been a key force driving developments at Kent Business School and following our success with the RAE (Research Assessment Exercise, we have had the opportunity to expand on our distinction in international research through a new initiative. We encourage and support visiting international professors to work collaboratively with our research-active faculty at the School. The ‘Visiting Scholar Programme’ enables our academics to partner with renowned global academic scholars to lead the development of new research.
As part of the Visiting Scholar Programme, Dr Devon Johnson of the University of Hartford in the US visited Kent Business School during July and August of 2010 to carry out joint research collaboration with Dr Ben Lowe, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the School. They collected data on consumer participation with online health forums and consequently produced an award-winning Paper as a result.
Dr Ben Lowe was delighted to attend the American Marketing Association Summer Educators’ Conference in San Francisco, US, held during 5-7 August 2011 and alongside co-author Dr Devon Johnson, won the award of Best Overall Conference Paper for their research Paper on “Understanding Consumer Active Participation in Healthcare Virtual Communities”. “I am delighted to receive an award such as this and for the recognition of our work, by an internationally renowned panel of experts. As healthcare virtual communities become some of the most visited sites on the web, this research has important implications about how they should be managed, and the effects they have upon others outside of the community” says Dr Lowe.
The AMA Summer Marketing Educators’ Conference is an important forum for current research, intellectual exchange, networking and career development for marketing academicians worldwide. It is aimed at increasing interaction with global marketing practitioners to gain comprehensive insights and share knowledge, allowing them to attend special sessions that include competitive papers as well as network with hundreds of marketing academics from around the world.
We would like to congratulate Dr Lowe and Dr Johnson on this award which stems from our Scholarship Programme initiative and we are proud of the international recognition this award attracts. It certainly goes forward to help continue to develop our worldwide recognition, international visibility and our research excellence.