Learning & Organisational Development are pleased to announce that the University has achieved Level 1 of the Disability Confident Grading Scheme and we are now accredited with ‘Disability Confident Committed’.

Through Disability Confident, we will work to ensure that disabled people and those with long-term health conditions have the opportunities to fulfil their potential and realise their aspirations. Recognition of this scheme will help us to recruit and retain from the widest possible pool of talent and help develop our valuable skills and experience.

As a Level 1 Disability Confident Committed Employer we have committed to:

• ensuring our recruitment process is inclusive and accessible
• communicating and promoting vacancies
• offering an interview to disabled people who meet the essential criteria
• anticipating and providing reasonable adjustments as required
• supporting any exiting employee who acquires a disability or long-term health condition, enabling them to stay in work
• arranging activities that will make a difference for disabled people.

The Certification (pictured) is valid for 12 months and we can now display the Disability Confident Committed badge on University stationery, correspondence and websites.

Please review where and how you can use this badge within your own processes.

Our work will not stop here.

To demonstrate our continued commitment, during the next 12 months we will review the criteria that is required for us to attain the level 2 certification to become a Disability Confident Employer. We will create an action plan and will work across the University with different departments and the EDI staff networks with the aim to achieve the next level of certification.

A new Crowdfunding platform set up by the Development Office to support student projects at Kent has successfully raised thousands to build an environmentally sustainable round wooden timber-framed building – using materials taken from the University’s own coppiced woodland.

This exciting project to create a teaching, learning, and social space set within an ethnobotanical garden was launched at the School of Architecture End of Year Show and quickly took off.

‘We raised well over the £3,000 target in a matter of weeks and thanks to generous match-funding this ambitious and ground-breaking project will enter the building phase at the start of next term,’ said Alex Perkins from the Development Office.

There will now be a further launch to coincide with Freshers Week and the Development Office will be working with Kent Union to choose student-led projects to fund raise through the platform.

Thank you to everyone who has purchased a ticket to Kent Sport’s Christmas at the Pavilion Cafe Bar on Friday 7 December 2018.

We were able to secure 50 more tickets, so if anyone has had any disappointment with purchasing more tickets – now is your chance!

At only £6 per ticket, it promises to be a night filled with incredible music by Project F, delicious food, scrumptious cocktails and entertaining games and competitions. We will also have a raffle to win some pretty awesome prizes with proceeds going towards Mike Wilkins Sports Scholarship Fund.

Click here to get your tickets now!

Let us know you’ll be in attendance by clicking ‘Going’ on our Facebook event.

The clean air laboratory suite in the Jennison Building, on Canterbury campus, has been extensively refurbished with a redesigned main laboratory layout.

The suite has HEPA filtered air conditioning and the services include nitrogen, high purity argon and compressed air.

The clean air laboratory facility provides enhanced facilities for researchers and students. It is used by both the School of Engineering and Digital Arts (EDA) and School of Physical Sciences (SPS).

The Applied Optics Group in SPS has produced highly acclaimed applied research including patents held by UoK for biomedical instruments using Optical Coherence Tomography, which are currently deployed in clinics worldwide for diagnosing ophthalmic conditions. The facility also accommodates unique glass producing equipment for optical fibres as well as laminar flow hoods that can be hired out.

The refurbished main laboratory area will allow EDA to expand its use including surface mount PCB development and high quality 3D printing.

The spatial planning of the main laboratory area and services was carried out by the School of Engineering and Digital Arts with Mark Ellis (EDA Director IT Tech Services) and Paul Sinnock (EDA Manager IT Tech Services), with overall design, project procurement and site supervision by the Estates Department  (Projects) with Ronald Wooldridge (Project Manager) and Jason Patrick (Electrical Engineer).

The clean air suite was closed for ten weeks while the work took place.

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

The School of Politics and International Relations is celebrating a double success in the annual British International Studies Association (BISA) awards.

PhD student Tom Watts won the Postgraduate Excellence in Teaching International Studies Prize, while Reader in International Relations, Dr Sean Molloy was joint winner of the Susan Strange Book Prize.

The Postgraduate Excellence prize recognises postgraduate students who have contributed to the positive learning experience of students in International Studies, raised the profile of learning and teaching in International Studies and shared best practice among BISA members.

Head of School, Professor Richard Whitman describes Tom as an “extremely worthy winner”. Tom has been teaching at Kent for several years and won the University’s Social Sciences’ seminar teaching prize in 2017. His application included an exceptional commitment to reflective practice, widespread innovations and work beyond the classroom including blog posts for the BISA PGN website.

Sean Molloy received the Susan Strange Book Prize for his book Kant’s International Relations: The Political Theology of Perpetual Peace (University of Michigan Press, 2017). The prize is for the best book published in any field of international studies during 2017. The prize aims to honour the work of Susan Strange and to recognise the best current work in the discipline.

BISA is a learned society which develops and promotes the study of International Studies, Politics and related subjects through teaching, research and facilitation of contact between scholars. Find out more on its website.

Last year the University launched a new integrated HR and Payroll system – Staff Connect. This introduced a new HR and Payroll system, management reports and the foundations of employee self-service.

The next phase of work on Staff Connect is now getting underway. It will see the phased introduction over the next year or so of further functionality to the system, enabling an automated, streamlined, single point of entry for many of our HR functions.

The aim of the second phase of Staff Connect is to streamline our HR processes and provide employees and managers with a one-stop-shop for most of your HR-related activity.

By the end of the second phase of development to Staff Connect you will be able to view and book onto training courses provided by Learning & Organisational Development (L&OD) and request annual leave via the system.

If you line manage others, Staff Connect will be where you go to authorise training and leave requests, record some forms of absence and you will have the option to log Appraisals/RPDs.  If you are a recruiting manager, Phase 2 will also see the replacement of the current i-grasp recruitment system.

The first of the new functionality to launch will be Training Administration – in September 2018.  This new element to Staff Connect will replace the existing system used by L&OD for training course administration, registration and evaluation of courses managed and delivered centrally by them.

If you are a regular user of the courses run by L&OD, either as a manager or as a member of staff, or are just interested in seeing how the new Staff Connect solution will work, user testing/training sessions, of about two hours in length, are being organised for each day of the week commencing 13 August.  To indicate that you would be interested in attending one of these sessions please contact Su Westerman (Staff Connect Communications and Engagement Manager).

If you have any questions or queries regarding any element of the project please also contact Su Westerman.  Alternatively, you can find out more at the Staff Connect Information website.