The 2014/15 round for Academic and Research Staff to apply for promotion and discretionary salary increases is now open.

Information on how to apply is available on the HR website.

We need you! Straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans – we need people of all sexual orientations and identities to help us show Stonewall that staff at Kent are engaged in supporting LGBT people at work.

We get useful feedback from the survey and Stonewall uses the level of feedback as part of our score in their annual ranking against other Universities and cpmpanies. So, we are keen to have responses from staff all across the University regardless of sexual orientation. Please help us do this by participating in this brief survey today (if you haven’t already).

The information you provide will, of course, be anonymous and will be sent directly to Stonewall’s Workplace Team. Once the data is collected and analysed, only the University of Kent’s average scores will be shared with us.

For instructions on how to access and complete the survey click on: https://www.kent.ac.uk/hr-equalityanddiversity/local/stonewallsurvey.html

The deadline for responses is 5pm on Saturday 15 November 2014.

The October 2014 edition of KENT staff magazine is now available to view online.

This issue includes features on the launch of our 50th anniversary year and the work of the Gateways to the First World War centre based at Kent. There is also a staff profile on Margaret Sargeant from KBS at Medway campus and images of staff across the University who played a key role during our students’ arrivals weekend.

If you would rather read the magazine online and would like to be removed from the hard copy circulation, please email Karen Baxter.

We welcome feedback on the magazine – you can get in touch with the editorial team at kentmagazine@kent.ac.uk.

A Kent Enterprise & Impact Network (KEIN) meeting will take place on Tuesday 4 November from 12.30-2pm in the Darwin Boardroom, Canterbury campus.

KEIN is a new network to share learning about enterprise and impact in an informal environment and to connect with like-minded colleagues.

For full details about the session see https://www.kent.ac.uk/enterprise/university-staff/kein.html or contact: enterprise@kent.ac.uk

If you would like to book a place, with lunch, please email ldev@kent.ac.uk. If you have specific dietary or access requirements, please let us know in the email.

‘Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?’ This was the heuristic question posed half a century ago by Edward Lorenz when trying to introduce Chaos Theory. On Wednesday 22 October, Bob Newport, a lecturer in the School of Physical Sciences, spoke the opening lines in the Canterbury Festival performance of ‘Chaos Cabaret’: an appropriately chaotic music-rich production written especially for the science theme of the Festival.

Performed in the unusual venue of the Speigaltent, the audience were treated to a gentle tale which really did begin with a butterfly and end with a tornado – all portrayed in music and words, and through some energetic actors weaving themselves expertly between the tables. Along the route, several aspects of science were subtly introduced. The project was initiated and steered by an ex-Kent academic, Frank Burnet, and was supported financially by the Science & Technology Facilities Council.

Throughout the project’s development Bob, an advocat of public engagement with science, provided some general advice wearing his physicist’s hat, but was later persuaded to play a more visible role on the night – including chairing a Q&A session afterwards (in which he was expertly helped by Kent emiritus professor Mohammed Sobhy).