During this period, we find ourselves at home with plenty of spare time on our hands. So why not use this opportunity to catch up on TV shows, you’ve previously not had time to watch?

With plenty of bingeworthy boxsets and unmissable dramas featured on Netflix and BBC iPlayer, we’ve selected our Top 10 across a mix of genres – something to suit every taste!

1. Killing Eve – BBC iPlayer

This crime/thriller based on a game of cat and mouse between eccentric assassin Villanelle and MI5 officer Eve, will have you on the edge of your sofa!

2. The Crown – Netflix

With not one but three series to binge on, this historical drama takes you on a journey through the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

3. His Dark Materials – BBC iPlayer

An adaptation of Phillip Pullman’s thrilling and epic novel, Dark Materials is an impressive fantasy for you to enjoy with the whole family.

4. Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness – Netflix

It’s the new show everyone’s talking about, this seven-episode documentary tells the true life of eccentric zoo owner Joe Exotic. Sprinkled with twists and turns, you’ll be amazed it’s fact not fiction!

5. This Country – BBC iPlayer

Something to tickle your funny bones, this Bafta winning comedy portrays life in a sleepy Cotswold village for cousins Kerry and Kurtan. Look out for an A-list secret celebrity in the final series.

6. Stranger Things – Netflix

Set in the 1980s, Stranger Things is a show for sci-fi lovers, featuring worldly monsters, supernatural powers, and heart-warming friendships. We can see why it’s won an award or two!

7. Line of Duty – BBC iPlayer

As series 6 is delayed in filming, there’s plenty of time to get caught up or remind yourself of the thrilling goings on with the team investigating police corruption.

8. Orange is the New Black – Netflix

Featuring seven seasons, Orange is the New Black is the perfect show to keep you occupied. Based in an American female prison, this drama will have you laughing and crying in equal measure!

9. Seven Worlds, One Planet – BBC iPlayer

With yet another jaw-dropping documentary under his belt, David Attenborough once again wows viewers with his latest series, as each episode explores the Earth’s continents and their inhabitants.

10. Friends – Netflix

 The final season may have aired in 2004, but this timeless comedy from across the pond will have you laughing over and over, no matter how many times you watch it!

Share your thoughts and ideas on our top 10 features with stories@kent.ac.uk

The Kent IT Consultancy (KITC) is part of the School of Computing and is a student staffed IT consultancy delivering services to local small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Its mission is to solve business problems with technology and to make our student consultants more employable.

This year the KITC had 26 undergraduate consultants who delivered between them 7000 hours of work across both Canterbury and Medway campuses. The team delivered a range of customer facing projects including 9 Digital Transformation projects, helping small businesses to make the best use of technology, Three App Prototype projects, four Website projects and 29 Cyber Security Health checks, helping businesses to benchmark themselves against the National Cyber Security Centre’s Small Business Guide.

In feedback clients were highly satisfied and indicated they were likely to recommend the services to others.

Catherine Barratt, Managing Director at Furnitubes International Ltd, for whom KITC created a standalone website that promotes a new product said: “The KITC team were fantastic. They understood the brief really well, were very well organised, checked in every week and delivered a fantastic site within a few weeks. Probably the best supplier experience I have had in a while!”

Julian Jennings, Managing Director at Legality Ltd, said “Legality experienced conflicting advice from various IT companies presenting difficulties in determining the best solution. The KITC team gave us a clear and unbiased assessment of what we required to best meet our needs. Giving us reassurance and confidence in choosing the right path going forward.

The KITC is in the process of adapting its offering in the face of in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. Local SMEs can continue to access its services over the summer with a new cohort of Master’s student consultants who can help businesses adapt to new ways of working.

The book, War, Trade and the State who’s editors are Kent’s Professor David Ormrod and the University of Leicester’s  Dr. Gijs Rommelse, will have it’s own online book launch later this month. 

Leading scholars from the Netherlands, Britain and the United States will participate in the online book launch and symposium hosted by the Royal Netherlands Embassy in London on 29 April.

War, Trade and the State places the history of Anglo-Dutch conflict during the seventeenth century in a global context, and sheds new light on the rise and decline of the British and Dutch commercial empires.

The event will include discussion of the historical background to Brexit and the potential for retaining close economic and cultural ties with the Netherlands, Britain’s oldest European ally.  The book’s co-editors, Professor David Ormrod and Dr Gijs Rommelse helped to organise earlier symposia at the Marine Etablissement, Amsterdam and the University’s Medway campus at the Historic Dockyard, which formed the basis for the current publication.

The event will be chaired by the Dutch Defence Attache in London, Capt. Wolter Sillevis Smitt in the presence of the Dutch Ambassador to the UK, HE Mr Simon Smits, and the UK Ambassador to the Netherlands, The Hon Peter Wilson CMG.

Students at the Paris School of Arts and Culture are excited to announce this year’s edition of their postgraduate festival, taking place in June 2020: Unite | Rebel. This year the festival will be taking place virtually due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

We are a group of postgraduates from the University of Kent Paris School of Arts and Culture, coming together to consider the power of unity and rebellion and to nurture the academic community through celebration, creativity and debate.

Join us from 2-5 June 2020 for an online conference, film festival and more. The events are still open for submissions. The conference keynote speaker is Julian Hanna. His latest book, The Manifesto Handbook: 95 Theses on an Incendiary Form, was published this year by Zero Books.

To take part, unite and rebel please visit the the festival’s website.

Dr Jennifer Hiscock, Reader in Supramolecular Chemistry in the School of Physical Sciences, has been awarded a Future Leaders Fellowship as part of UK Research and Innovation’s flagship scheme – which invests in outstanding individuals across the UK.

This funding will support Dr Hiscock to develop her career while tackling two global health threats simultaneously. Her exciting and ground-breaking research focuses on the development of novel molecular weapons for deployment in the fight against antimicrobial resistant bacterial infections and cancer, and the grant will enable her to continue to address these challenges.

Dr Hiscock says ‘It is my hope that I can use this fellowship opportunity to not only fulfill my research aims, but also to inspire the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists to accomplish their aspirations. I would like to thank UKRI for supporting this work and all of my mentors that have enabled me to get this far.’

The Scheme and the fellowships have long been used to support up-and-coming researchers in universities. Sir Mark Walport, Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation, explains: “The Future Leaders Fellowships are UKRI’s flagship talent programme, designed to foster and nurture the research and innovation leaders of the future. We are delighted to support these outstanding researchers and innovators across universities, research organisations and businesses.”

Dr Hiscock is one of 90 UKRI Future Leaders Fellows in a milestone year for the scheme as it will now extend to fellows based directly in businesses. Helping to foster new research and innovation career paths will increase the movement of ideas and people between the business and academic sectors; breaking down barriers and developing new ways of working.

Kirsty Grainger, Director of the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships, said: ‘The Future Leaders Fellows represent some of the most brilliant people working in the country. We’re supporting researchers from every background – from the arts to medicine, and the social sciences to engineering – helping them become the research and innovation leaders of the future.’

UKRI’s initiative aims to support the creation of a new cohort of research and innovation leaders who will have links across different sectors and disciplines. Awardees will each receive between £400,000 and £1.5 million over an initial four years. The grant supports challenging and novel projects, and the development of the individual, and can pay for team members’ wages, equipment and other needs.

For more information about the scheme see the UKRI website.

The E-learning team are excited to announce the launch of a suite of online training resources focusing on key learning technologies including Moodle, Turnitin, KentPlayer and Ombea!

These resources are based on the ‘Essentials’ training sessions and guidance that the team has previously delivered via both online pdf guides and bi-monthly training sessions held on campus. As such they cover basic functionality and are targeted at new colleagues and existing academic and professional services staff seeking a refresher.

Colleagues can self-enrol and, as the resources are self-paced, they can dip in and out as other commitments permit. Upon completion of all required activities, participants receive a notification that they have earned an electronic badge that they can download and a certificate to evidence their completion of the training.

Given the continued uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic (when we can return to campus), the e-learning team hope that these training resources will provide an increased level of support to colleagues who are working remotely and starting to turn a tentative eye to the production of modules for the 2020-21 academic year.

Please visit our Information for Staff webpage for more information and for links to the newly-launched online training resources. Interested colleagues can self-enrol however bulk enrolment of both academic and professional services staff can be done on a per request basis by contacting your Faculty Learning Technologist.

What’s your role at the University?

I work as an Access Control Adviser, mainly responsible for administering the University’s online security management systems (Pegasys and SALTO). I also design and project manage new installations of automatic and access-controlled doors.

How has your role changed as a result of Covid-19?

Normally, my working day involves adding new access control panels and doors but, because of Covid-19, I have spent many hours manually re-programming doors, ID cards and access fobs for students living on campus.

What specific additional tasks have you been asked to do?

So far, I have been asked to:

• Change the operation of all 50 access-controlled buildings on the Canterbury and Medway campuses so they can only be accessed using KentOne ID cards during lockdown.
• Prevent around 25,000 staff and student ID cards from working on doors/ buildings to which they would normally unlock.
• Remove access from 1300 accommodation fobs, which were taken off-campus by students who moved out of their halls.
• Provide all resident students with access to Rutherford College so they can use the catering facilities.
• Re-program ID cards for circa 700 staff, who appear on the approved list of key staff and are permitted access to work on campus; for example, Security, Maintenance, Estates Support Services, Kent Hospitality etc.

How have you been finding your “new” role?

Although these tasks have given me a huge amount of extra work, I’ve really enjoyed doing my bit.  I’ve been asked to carry out some very important tasks, allowing me to use my expertise in re-designing how we use our access systems. It shows my senior managers have real trust in my work – which is great!

Have there been any major hurdles along the way?

When I found out that no-one was going to be allowed to work on campus unless they had been authorised, this meant the work involved was going to be a lot more than I initially thought – I would need to find a way of preventing just some staff and students ID cards from working on the readers.

I tested a number of different software configurations before I identified the ones, which would not only enable the campus to operate when required, but would be easy enough to revert back once the campus returns to normal.

What’s been the feedback so far from colleagues?

My senior colleagues have been very appreciative of my work and how fast I’ve done it. Colleagues in Estates, including Security, Maintenance & Support Services, have been extremely helpful and carried out a number of tasks I would have done if I’d been working on campus. I’d like to say a big thank you to them!

Colleagues I’ve worked with outside of Estates and who’ve requested my help, have also been extremely helpful, friendly and very understanding of the work involved.