Yearly Archives: 2018

Continued success for Kent’s European Summer Schools

The University’s 2018 European Summer Schools, at its postgraduate centres in Paris and Brussels, have reported another successful year.

Launched in 2013, the two-week summer school programme is built on Kent’s specialist knowledge and international reputation as the UK’s European university by offering a number of undergraduate students and external applicants the opportunity to participate in academic sessions and cultural activities in these two world-renowned European capitals.

This year, students at the University’s Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS) explored the theme of ‘Europe and the World’, which drew upon the academic strengths of the school. Within this context, various sub-themes were also covered; these included migration and the refugee response, the European Union’s (EU) relationship with emerging powers, and its response to the global economic crisis. Students participated in a series of guest lectures, seminars and debates delivered by academics, policy-makers, diplomats and European civil servants.

Students at Kent’s Paris School of Arts and Culture, located in historic Montparnasse, explored the theme of ‘Revolutions’. This allowed them to gain a greater understanding of how French culture has long been at the centre of innovation in the fields of architecture, film, literature, art and philosophy

Students spent two weeks in Paris in an interdisciplinary environment, attending seminars given by expert academics from Kent and visiting important sites and museums related to the programme. These included the Pompidou Centre, the Picasso Museum and the Jardin des Plantes.

Sophie Punt, Summer School Co-ordinator at the University, described this year as ‘one of the best to date with more students than ever before signing up’. It was successful in many respects she said but ‘overall this year’s schools have provided students with not only enhanced intercultural and analytical skills, but also provided them with an opportunity to see Europe and its role in the world from a range of different perspectives’. Looking ahead we are hoping to run a summer school at our Rome centre for 2019 which will draw on the expertise in Arts and History-based studies in the eternal city.

We would like to extend our thanks to the generous supporters of the schools including the Student Projects Fund for their generous contribution towards the scholarships.

New open access publication on mechanisms in medicine

Jon Williamson, Professor of Reasoning, Inference and Scientific Method, and Dr Michael Wilde, Lecturer in Philosophy, both from the Department of Philosophy, have contributed to the book Evaluating Evidence of Mechanisms in Medicine (Springer, 2018), co-authored with Veli-Pekka Parkkinen, Christian Wallmann, Brendan Clarke, Phyllis Illari, Michael P Kelly, Charles Norell, Federica Russo and Beth Shaw. (Veli-Pekka, Christian, Phyllis and Federica are all former postdocs from the Department of Philosophy at Kent.) The book has been made freely available for all through Open Access.

Evidence-based medicine seeks to achieve improved health outcomes by making evidence explicit, and also by developing explicit methods for evaluating it. To date, evidence-based medicine has largely focused on evidence of association produced by clinical studies. As such, it has tended to overlook evidence of pathophysiological mechanisms and evidence of the mechanisms of action of interventions.

This book is the first to develop explicit methods for evaluating evidence of mechanisms in the field of medicine. It explains why it can be important to make this evidence explicit, and describes how to take such evidence into account in the evidence appraisal process. It develops procedures for seeking evidence of mechanisms, for evaluating evidence of mechanisms, and for combining this evaluation with evidence of association in order to yield an overall assessment of effectiveness.

The book offers a useful guide for all those whose work involves evaluating evidence in the health sciences, including those who need to determine the effectiveness of health interventions and those who need to ascertain the effects of environmental exposures.

The book follows on from Jon’s Leverhulme-funded project on Grading Evidence of Mechanisms in Physics and Biology, and also his AHRC project on Evaluating Evidence in Medicine.

For more details, to either purchase a hard copy or read free online, please see the publisher’s page.

2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award announced

The 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction has just been awarded to Anne Charnok’s Dreams Before the Start of Time (47North 2017), a novel set in London in the near future. Infertility is a thing of the past, and artificial wombs eliminate the struggles of pregnancy, and men and women can create children independently. But the novel asks what does it mean to be a parent? A child? A family?

Dr Paul March-Russell, Specialist Associate Lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature and editor of Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction was on the panel of judges for the award.

Paul praised the winning title: ‘I’m delighted that this quiet, beautifully written novel has received one of the genre’s highest accolades. It eschews melodrama and sensation for a methodically thought-out narrative which is all the more human and profound.’

Further details of the Arthur C. Clarke Award are available at: www.clarkeaward.com

Matthew Whittingham publishes PhD thesis

Kent alumnus Dr Matthew Whittingham, who completed his doctorate in the Department of Philosophy, has published his thesis as The Self and Social Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

Matthew’s book is concerned with the human individual and her relationship with the communities of which she is a member. It argues against the traditional atomistic view that individuals are essentially independent of the social relations into which they enter, and instead argues for the holistic view that we are essentially social beings who cannot exist apart from normative communities.

Matthew’s PhD was supervised by Professor Sean Sayers.

To find out more about the book, please see the publisher’s webpage here.

Fires near Athens

Our thoughts are very much with all those affected by the fires near Athens.

We have written to all our current Greek students, those studying at our Athens centre, our alumni living in Greece and our Greek institutional partners to express our condolences and asking our students to contact us if they are affected.

Dr Anthony Manning | Dean for Internationalisation

Student Services CARE Awards winners 2018

We are delighted to share the winners of the Student Services CARE Awards 2018, which recognises the achievements and excellence of staff members who embody the values of Student Services. This year’s winners across the five awards categories are:

Empowerment and Innovation Award: Anna Edgar-Chan (Counsellor, Student Support and Wellbeing), for her outstanding contributions to Student Support and Wellbeing including introducing e-therapy options and reducing waiting times for students.

Student Focussed Award: Hannah Greer and Jen Davey (Work-Study Scheme, Careers and Employability Service), for the Work Study Scheme, providing employability skills training, one to one mentoring and employment opportunities for students.

Partnership Award: Careers and Employability Service Team, for organising the Employability Festival at the Canterbury and Medway campuses, enhancing the employability of Kent students via links with graduate employers and developing students’ employability skills.

Spirit of Student Services Award: Cathy Myers, Specific Learning Difficulties Adviser, for her dedication to supporting staff and students during the period of industrial action and adverse weather conditions.

Team Excellence Award: Medway Master’s Office Team, for organising fundraising for the Molly McLaren Foundation.

You can read more about this year’s winners on the CARE Awards website.

Summer school in quantitative methods led by SSPSSR

Forty six students attended a two-week summer school in quantitative methods at the University from 18-30 June.

The two weeks form part of the University’s Q-Step centre’s programme, where students take a summer school so they can continue onto our degrees with minor in Quantitative Research. The programme forms part of a country wide initiative to address the shortage of quantitative skills amongst social science undergraduates in the UK. And this year our University of Kent students were joined by three external students from the UK, Hong Kong and the Nuffield foundation’s placement programme.

During the two weeks, students were given an introduction to quantitative methods, as well as having an opportunity to get to know both lecturers and teaching staff at the Q-Step centre. The two weeks consisted of teaching and social events – the latter of course coloured by the world championships. In addition to traditional seminars and lectures, the students were very lucky to attend two engaging guest seminars given by Dr Renee Luthra from the University of Essex and Rima Saini from City University reporting on their studies which relate to themes within the programme: ethnicity, race and discrimination.

Students showed great enthusiasm by interrogating and questioning these topics both in the expert seminars and in their own projects. The last day of summer school was our conference presentation day where student presentations were of a very high level- a perfect wrap up of a both socially and intellectually stimulating experience.

Thank you to all the students and to our excellent assistant lecturers Josh Townsley, Eva Sigurdardottir and Gianna Eick and Victoria Schoen for making it a great experience.

Fresher’s guide to Kent 2018

For all you newbies, here’s a helpful introduction to Kent and some of the fantastic services available to you.

Your school – is a helpful point of contact for all your studying needs. Whether you need guidance on how to reference or employability advice, your school can help, and if they can’t, they will know who can. Find your school and academic adviser.
Studying at Kent.There is a wide range of study support available across the University. You can not only go to your school for study advice, but you can also talk to one of our learning advisers from the Student Learning Advisory Service (SLAS).
Employability support. In an increasingly competitive job market, we want to make sure you have the skills and experience to stand out. From work experience opportunities to support showcasing your skills, we offer a range of services to help you bag that dream job.
Our Student Finance Team is here to help, whether your student loan is late or you just need help managing your money.
Kent is a great place to live and study. Here is some useful information to help you while you’re living in Kent over the next few years.
As a student you have access to a wide range of support and wellbeing services, including help with a disability, child care and a counselling service.
Greenwich and Kent Students’ Unions Together is your students’ union and are there to represent the student voice. They also look after a range of student activities including social events and societies at Kent.
The Student Hub at Medway is GK Unions’ newly refurbished home. It hosts a range of student events, serves a good choice of food including home-made pizzas and is a great place to relax. Read more about the Student Hub.
As well as a fully-equipped library, most our library resources are online, so you can get the information you need 24-hours a day. Visit Drill Hall Library’s website.
When you join Kent you automatically become part of a college. Joining a college community gives you a support network and your Masters’ Office is somewhere you can go for help and advice.

Fresher’s guide to Kent 2018

For all you newbies, here’s a helpful introduction to Kent and some of the fantastic services available to you.

Your school – is a helpful point of contact for all your studying needs. Whether you need guidance on how to reference or employability advice, your school can help, and if they can’t, they will know who can. Find your school and academic adviser.

Studying at Kent. There is a wide range of study support available across the University. You can not only go to your school for study advice, but you can also talk to one of our learning advisers from the Student Learning Advisory Service (SLAS).

Employability support. In an increasingly competitive job market, we want to make sure you have the skills and experience to stand out. From work experience opportunities to support showcasing your skills, we offer a range of services to help you bag that dream job.

Our Student Finance Team is here to help, whether your student loan is late or you just need help managing your money.

Kent is a great place to live and study. Here is some useful information to help you while you’re living in Kent over the next few years.

As a student you have access to a wide range of support and wellbeing services, including help with a disability, child care and a counselling service.

Kent Union is your students’ union and is there to represent the student voice. They also look after a range of student activities including the Summer Ball and societies at Kent.

Find out all you need to know about the Templeman Library and IT services on Canterbury Campus. Welcome sessions run all Welcome Week in the Templeman Library. Check your timetable to see if there is a session for your subject booked. If not, or if you miss it, join any session during the week. Visit Hello IT and Library! for more information.

Both Canterbury and Medway have good transport links, so you don’t necessarily need a car to get around. You can also benefit from a range of discounts on local transport. Discover some of your options for getting around.

When you join Kent you automatically become part of a college. Joining a college community gives you a support network and your Masters’ Office is somewhere you can go for help and advice.

Athena SWAN Charters Award Ceremony 2018

The University attended the Advance HE’s Charters Awards Ceremony on 17 July at the new Swansea University’s Bay Campus in Swansea, Wales, together with 120 colleagues across the Higher Education sector in the UK.

With these awards, Advance HE’s Athena SWAN Charter and Race Equality Charter recognises and celebrates the commitment and hard work that’s being done at the Institutions and Departments in advancing good practices in these fields.

Kent was successful in renewing its Institutional Athena SWAN Bronze award.The redacted version of the submission can be accessed here.

In addition to the Institutional Award, three of our Schools got their departmental awards; the School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Actuarial Science collected their Athena SWAN Silver award. SMSAS is the first department at the University of Kent to hold a Silver award. The School of History collected their Athena SWAN Bronze award. The School of History is the first department in the Faculty of Humanities at Kent to hold an Athena SWAN award.

The Athena SWAN Team also collected the Medway School of Pharmacy’s Athena SWAN Bronze. The Athena SWAN Team and the University of Kent know from experience that these awards are not a given and that getting an award is just the beginning. However, we would like to take this moment to celebrate the success, but also acknowledge that there is still a lot of work to do in advancing Gender Equality and in creating a fair work environment for all.