The Virtual Music Project has yielded its first fruit – the complete first movement of Vivaldi’s Gloria (listen now on YouTube). The project, run by the Deputy Director of Music, Dan Harding, brings together students, staff and alumni from across the University community to continue rehearsing and making music together. Participants have included musicians from around the country and even across the world from Germany to Luxembourg and Japan!

The project affords musicians amongst the University community the opportunity to record their individual vocal or instrumental part and send them, contributing to a combined ‘virtual’ performance of Vivaldi’s vibrant Baroque masterpiece.

There’s still the opportunity to get involved in the project, as it moves into building the second movement of the piece, as well as a virtual Dance Orchestra performing tunes from the 1940s and 1950s, with other pieces coming as the project continues to unfold.

Read more about the project or find out how to get involved on the Virtual Music Project Facebook page.

Next Monday sees the first day of term and, for most students, it marks the start of exams. The last few weeks have been particularly intense for those involved in the development of an adapted approach to the delivery and assessment of exams and I would like to thank all of those who have been involved in what has been an outstanding – and complex – piece of work.

We recognise that the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to have an impact and it is likely that we will have to continue to adapt how we deliver our education, and the wider student experience. As I mentioned last week, Professor Richard Reece, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education and Student Experience, is working with colleagues to prepare for the next academic year when we will be welcoming new and returning students to the University. We will continue to update you on this.

At a time when we are all having to deal with additional pressures, it was particularly heartening to learn that the One Hour Degree, created by the Student Success project, has been shortlisted in the Guardian University Awards 2020 in the Digital Innovation category. Congratulations to all those involved.

Work also continues across the University in support of the fight against COVID-19. I think we have all been touched by the response we have had from healthcare professionals, students, members of the community and others in response to the work of colleagues.

In the next few days, I will provide a fuller on some of the actions we have been taking over the last few weeks including how we are preparing for the new academic year, and an update on the financial impact of the current situation.

My very best wishes to you and your families.

Karen

Karen Cox | Vice-Chancellor and President

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 Vice-Chancellor’s February blog outlining the work required to get the University back on a financially sustainable footing, helping ensure we continue to be a great place to work, teach, research and study.  

Since then, the Financial Sustainability and Improvement programme has been approved by Council, with a focus on carefully reducing costs, specifically targeting increase in income in areas that make sense and making the right strategic decisions.  

This work is being coordinated by our Financial Improvement Director Peter Pentecost, who has been employed by the University specifically to develop this and to support its implementation. Peter reports to the Vice-Chancellor, supporting colleagues across the organisation to make sure the plans in the programme are delivered on time and that project milestones are achieved. 

The four main strands of activity to deliver the programme have now been established, with Executive Group leads in each area focussing on how to identify savings and income opportunities with sufficient pace without destabilising our strong teaching and research ethos. There is more information on the different areas of work on our new Financial Sustainability staff webpages, with updates to follow in the coming weeks on recent progress with non-pay savings led by the Cash & Capital Approvals Committee, and new analysis undertaken for the University on student data trends to support our Academic Sustainability and Performance activity. 

Find out more about our Financial Sustainability and Improvement work. Further information, including FAQs, will be available on these pages shortly. 

Our annual Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) report, showcasing the excellent work across the University to promote and embed equality and inclusivity, is now available on the HR webpages.

The 2018/19 report goes beyond the fulfilment of our statutory duties for equality reporting and is a testament to Kent’s commitment to being in the vanguard of organisations that view equality as not simply a matter of institutional fairness and access but a key component of a fair and just society.

We believe that all staff and students have a role to play in improving equality and removing barriers to inclusivity. Our aim is to provide experiences in the work and education space that will inspire and empower them to be a part of a changed world.

Find out more about our strategic aims, some of the EDI challenges over the past year and how we’re responding to them, by linking to the online annual report now.

Learning & Organisational Development Team

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.

To give you certainty and reassurance in the current circumstances, we’ve made some changes to make it easier for you to manage your library loans.

Fines and charges 

We have cancelled all outstanding fines for late return of Templeman and Drill Hall Library items for Kent students, staff and external borrowers. We’ve either removed these from your library account or will do so in the next few days – so please don’t pay them. 

Other types of charges, for example to cover the cost of lost items, will remain on your library account until you clear them.  

Books now due end of July 

We have further extended the due date of all library items you have on loan. You won’t have to return your items until at least 31 July.  

This also means you won’t be able to reserve items for now. We’ll review this, so you may have to return books in August/September if someone else reserves them. 

Returning library items 

In line with government and NHS guidance we ask you not to make non-essential journeys to return your library items. 

If you’re coming back to Kent next academic year, we recommend holding onto your books until you return, though you may need to return them after 31 July if someone else reserves them. 

If you’re a final year student or want to return your books for any other reason, you can still do so.  

• If you live on the Canterbury campus, use the external book drop at the Library Road Entrance. 
• Otherwise post them to us at: Templeman Library, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NU. 

We understand that posting books can be difficult, especially if you have multiple or heavy items on loan or have gone abroad. We are exploring ways of making returns easier for you and will share advice as soon as we can. 

If you have left books in your campus accommodation and are not planning to return, please let us know. 

Contact us

Thank you for bearing with us. We are still working out some of our processes and advice, as these are unprecedented times for all of us.  

If you have any problems or concerns about borrowing, returns or fines, please get in touch and we’ll do our best to help: 

• email lendingenquiries@kent.ac.uk 
• use “Chat to us” on the library webpages 
• phone +44 (0) 1227 82 4999 

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.