Master of Turing College, Dr Emma Bainbridge and colleagues decorated the underused planters in the Turing Hub.

Emma has been a keen crocheter for several years and has been involved in some of the yarn bombs in and around the School of English. Using her skills, she decided to put together a project involving some of the staff from the school. The project entailed crocheting a generous amount of flowers for the empty planters. Within 4 hours, the team had created vibrant crochet flowers to fill the underused planters in Hut 8.

Emma hopes to continue developing the project and also hopes to put in place more projects for incoming Turing students in the next academic year.

You can now book to attend a Crucial Conversations two day course in October. The objective of the course is to support leaders at Kent to achieve results through bold, courageous dialogue, with their teams and each other. To enable leaders to create a climate of mutual trust and respect and to provide tools, techniques and materials for participants to take away and apply to real-life leadership situations.

This two-day programme is for academic and professional service leaders. The target audience is primarily Grades 9&10. However, if you are operating in a Leadership role outside these grades and you feel it would be of benefit to you, please contact us before booking, by emailing LDev@kent.ac.uk

See Staff Connect for more information and to book.

Further dates for 2019/20 will be announced shortly.

The University is adding to its green credentials with a move to replace plastic drinking cups across campus.

All new students staying on campus will once again receive an eco-friendly reusable Bamboo coffee cup and a fully recyclable, sustainable water bottle.

And, for the first time this year, a free water bottle will be offered to all staff too. The bottle, made from sustainable sugar cane, is fully recyclable and has a negative carbon footprint. As well as the University of Kent logo, it includes a QR code which users can scan to find the nearest available refillable water station.

The bottles will be available, on production of a KentOne ID card, from next week (wc 16 September) at Kent Hospitality outlets across Canterbury and Medway campuses. Bamboo coffee cups will also be available at the same outlets at a cost of £5 each.

The new bottles and cups are part of a package of measures at Kent to reduce our carbon footprint and increase our sustainability. This latest initiative has been led by members of Kent Hospitality, working alongside Kent Union, Estates and Procurement as part of the University’s Sustainable Food Steering Group, which oversees our sustainable food strategy.

The initiative also fits in well with the University strategy, Kent 2025, which states that, we will ‘embed sustainability through building the UN Sustainable Development Goals into our research, education, leadership, operations, administration and engagement.’

Kevin Stuckey, Director of Commercial Services, explains: ‘We were already working with Kent Union’s President Sasha Langeveldt to provide sustainable drinking cups and bottles. However, our Vice-Chancellor was keen for us to extend this across campus and eventually remove the need for any single-use plastic cups.

‘We therefore doubled our order for new water bottles this year so we could offer staff, as well as new residential students a sustainable alternative. We hope this will be welcomed by not only our staff, but the wider community, as Kent does its bit to reduce its carbon footprint.’

Colleagues are invited to an update on Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes (TEF) Framework and Subject Level Pilots, by Professor April McMahon, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education. The update will take place on Friday 13 September from 13.30 to 14.30 (Grimond Lecture Theatre 2).

The presentation is part of our preparations for the next round on TEF. It will include a general update on the TEF framework and its development following the completion of the second year of testing pilot options for subject level assessment. The presentation will also outline what TEF is, how it works, and what it is for, and consider some of the challenges and benefits of including a subject level perspective.

April will discuss some of the work we are doing at the University of Kent to prepare for subject-level TEF, and how important it is for us to approach this as a university community, with academic, professional and student perspectives all contributing and everyone having a role to play.

We hope to see as many of you as possible on 13 September. If you are unable to attend, you can listen to the event via this link (available to anyone with a Kent IT account).

Kent Innovation and Enterprise will be hosting an event focusing on the research, products and services being developed to promote healthy ageing in an ageing society at the University of Kent Canterbury campus on Thursday 17th October, from 9.30am – 3pm. Join us for an insight into the research, products and services that are being developed to promote healthy ageing.

The number of people over 75 in the UK today is one in 12. By 2040, it will rise to one in 7. We’re also living for longer and a third of children born now are expected to live to 100. This presents a challenge to health services, but it is also an opportunity for businesses and researchers who can help people to stay active and productive as they age.

If you are a business or academic working in this field, this event will give you the chance to learn more about the various funding streams available and the opportunity to network with like-minded people, opening up the possibilities of future discussion and collaboration. 

With speakers from across Kent and Medway this event will discuss innovations, case studies and opportunities for businesses to engage in this key issue. Particular focus will be on the following 7 themes of Healthy Ageing:

1.    Sustaining physical activity

2.    Designing for age-friendly homes  

3.    Maintaining health at work

4.    Managing common complaints of ageing

5.    Creating healthy and active places 

6.    Care support for people with cognitive impairment  

7.    Reducing social isolation

For more information and to register your place, please click here. 

Dr Fernando Otero has been appointed as the new Deputy Head of School (Medway), with immediate effect. Fernando has been a lecturer in the School for six years, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer this year. He gained his PhD at Kent and previously worked as a Research Associate so has long experience of the University and the School.

Head of School, Professor Richard Jones said, ‘Fernando impressed us greatly with his vision for the future of the School of Computing in Medway. He will join the School’s Core Management Team and I very much look forward  to working closely with him.’

Fernando is a member of the Data Science and Computational Intelligence Groups and his research interests include data mining and knowledge discovery, bio-inspired algorithms, the application of data mining algorithms in bioinformatics and financial forecasting, and big data.

Fernando has also recently secured funding for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with London-based fintech start-up Youtility to enhance user experience using machine learning models. He also leads Computing’s outreach activities to schools and colleges.

Are you looking for funding for a new PhD student to work on a project? If their doctoral research will be focused on the challenges of economic development and well-being in developing countries, then please consider making an application to the staff-led PhD scholarships offered by the Global Challenges Doctoral Centre (GCDC).

Key points about the scheme:

• The GCDC offers eight doctoral scholarships per year and four are staff-led projects 

• Staff have the opportunity to propose projects by completing the application form and emailing it to kentgcdc@kent.ac.uk by Monday, 23 September 2019

• A panel will assess the applications and select four projects; the outcome will be announced at the beginning of October 2019

• The four projects will be advertised in October 2019 for September 2020 entry 

Please visit the GCDC website for more information, and you are welcome to contact the director of the centre, Dr Beth Breeze if you have any concerns or questions about eligibility.

The collaborative project “Licthsuchende” by Rocio von Jungenfeld, Lecturer in Digital Media at the School of Engineering and Digital Arts and Dave Murray-Rust, Lecturer in Design Informatics, School of Design, University of Edinburgh, has been shortlisted for the Lumen Prize.

Lichtsuchende is an interactive installation, built using a society of biologically inspired, robotic creatures who exchange light as a source of energy and as a means of communication. The robotic creatures are reminiscent of sunflowers, turning their heads to face the sun in order to absorb its light. However, at the same time they also generate light in order to engage with others. Each creature is relatively small, but when a group of Lichtsuchende are brought together in an installation they form an expanding photo-kinetic social environment in which visitors can become immersed.

Based on simple cybernetics combined with human and animal psychology (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs), the Lichtsuchende sleep, dance with each other and with visitors while constantly seeking light sources to play and communicate with. They are curious and, when awake, they are keen to interact with any source of light and to exchange photonic information.

Visitors are invited to engage with the installation by using high power torches. With these torches they can explore the environment of the cybernetic light seeking creatures, influencing their movements and provoking reactions. The embodied algorithms give rise to emergent behaviours which have communicative and emotional resonance, allowing a duet between the humans and the cybernetic beings.

The Lumen Prize for Art and Technology celebrates the very best art created with technology through a global competition, exhibitions and events worldwide.  Winners will be announced on 24 October 2019.

Our Occupational Health team will be offering blood pressure checks at Canterbury and Medway campuses to mark Blood Pressure UK: Know Your Numbers Week 09-13 September 2019.

Do you know what blood pressure is?  More importantly, do you know what YOUR blood pressures is? Having your blood pressure taken is a simple and excellent way of gauging the health of your cardiovascular system, that is, your heart and your blood vessels.

Blood Pressure UK campaigns to increase knowledge of how to stay healthy and manage blood pressure. Each year they run a Know Your Numbers campaign encouraging people to have their blood pressure checked. Occupational Health has engaged once again with this campaign and is offering blood pressure checks for staff at both Canterbury and Medway campuses.  The checks are only available on certain days across the week of 9-13 September – for details see the Blood pressure checks poster

A check is straightforward, doesn’t involve any invasive testing or needles and only takes 5-10 minutes of your time. You’ll be advised straightaway of what your blood pressure reading. If it is higher than expected you will be recommended to visit your GP to have it checked again.

If you are interested in booking on a Campus Blood Pressure check please contact Occupational Health either by ringing Pat Armstrong, the OH Technician, on extension 4691 or by emailing occupationalhealth@kent.ac.uk

For more information on blood pressure, follow these links:

http://www.bloodpressureuk.org/BloodPressureandyou

https://patient.info/heart-health/high-blood-pressure-hypertension

https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/lifestyle/what-is-blood-pressure/