Take part in our first Winter WonderWalk to help raise money for the Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy!

How to get involved

Join us on Saturday 11 December 2021 at 13.00 for our first Winter WonderWalk. The Parkinson’s Winter WonderWalk, is a 10km sponsored walk around the beautifully historic and iconic city of Canterbury.

Suitable for everyone, the 10km circular route will start at the University of Kent and will take you through scenic routes and past renowned landmarks such as Westgate Towers and Gardens, Dane John Gardens and Mound and Canterbury Cathedral. Take a look at the Walk Guide  and Route Map.

Sign up for the walk

Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy

Together with the charity Parkinson’s Care and Support UK, we’re raising money to establish the Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy. If funding is secured, this centre will be based on the University of Kent’s campus and will provide its services free of charge to those with Parkinson’s disease and their carers. It is hoped that it will open in 2022.

Parkinson’s disease devastates lives and goes far beyond the tremors and rigidity that people commonly associate with the condition. Anyone can get Parkinson’s – young or old. Every hour two more people are diagnosed, which is equivalent to 18,000 people every year. 1 in 37 people alive today will be diagnosed with Parkinson’s in their lifetime and yet there is currently no cure.

A range of non-drug therapies exist which help to deal with the symptoms of this disease, including physiotherapy, exercise classes and speech and language therapy. New forms of self-administered non-invasive brain stimulation (requiring no surgery) are also becoming available including a method, pioneered by a research group here at the University of Kent, which clinical trials have shown can induce profound improvements in intellectual, motor and emotional function.

The Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy will enable all these therapies to be combined into a single, coherent care package tailored to individual need. Allied to this clinical service will be a research programme that explores the inter-dependencies between different treatments in order to allow each to be offered in the best way, as well as research to inform treatment of people with other brain injury, such as stroke and dementia.

Please consider supporting our campaign to help change the lives of those with Parkinson’s. You can also take a look at our charity Christmas cards on sale as another way to offer your support.

We look forward to you joining us on this journey to transform the future of Parkinson’s care.

From Professor Karen Cox | Vice-Chancellor and President

Dear Students and Colleagues, 

An article by Olivia Miller, Press & PR Officer

Today we’re reflecting on the generosity of our donors who enable us to have a greater impact and create opportunities for our students.

Our donors have generously supported:

Kent and Medway Medical School (KMMS)

Kent and Medway Medical School was launched in September 2020 and we are so very grateful to our generous benefactors who have supported us so far.

Highpoints include:

• Giving all first-year medical students an iPad on commencing their 5-year medical programme
• Celebrating the success of the KMMS Scholarship programme, with over 55 first year medical students having now been awarded scholarships worth over £1million thanks to generous benefactors including charitable foundations, corporates, NHS trusts and individuals
• Offering 15 philanthropic prizes for first year students and beyond
• Buying state-of-the-art clinical equipment e.g. Butterfly Ultrasound Probes, a Virtual Microscope
• Construction began on the Pears Building housing the first purpose-built GP Simulation Suite. The building also includes a 100 seater lecture theatre, seminar rooms, IT suite, multi-user rooms, board room, student common space and refreshment areas
• Construction began on the Verena Holmes Building housing Anatomy Learning Centre, collaborative lecture theatre, medical simulation suites, mock hospital wards, fully functioning X-Ray suite, clinical and observation rooms
• Raising over £5M in philanthropic gifts to date from 139 benefactors – helping students to achieve their dreams of becoming the doctors and scientists of tomorrow

Find out more about Giving to KMMS.

First 500 Scholarship

Our First 500 Scholarship is funded by the undergraduates who helped found the University in 1965 and we thank them for assisting students to reach their potential.

One scholarship is worth £2,000 per annum (or pro-rata for part-time students) for the duration of the recipient’s degree programme.

Sol Herrera Penido, recipient of a First 500 Scholarship at Kent, explains more in this video…

Kent Opportunity Fund

Our supporters’ kind donations to the Kent Opportunity Fund, have helped us to provide equal opportunities for all students.

The Kent Opportunity Fund was established to provide a firm foundation on which to build Kent’s future. It supports a broad range of scholarships, student projects to enhance extra-curricular activities at Kent, and bursaries to support students working through financial hardship. Committees of Kent staff, alumni and donors allocate the funds raised and ensure that they go to the students who are most in need.

This year we’ve been able to provide over £200,000 among record numbers of students desperately needing support and the gifts they have made will inspire the future.

Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy

We thank those who have so far supported our fundraising efforts to launch a new Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy in 2022. In partnership with Parkinson’s Care and Support UK, the Centre will provide innovative and life changing non-drug therapies to support those with Parkinson’s.

These include the use of ground-breaking new research led by Professor David Wilkinson that focuses on stimulating the balance organs of the inner ear to improve brain health.

An estimated 2,000 people will visit the Centre during its inaugural year, with its integrated approach filling a much-needed gap in the support options currently available.

Our fundraising campaign aims to secure the £600,000 needed to make our vision a reality. The funds will enable free access to the stimulation therapy and to established non-drug therapies that help reduce the disabling symptoms that Parkinson’s drugs struggle to reach.

Find out more about how to support the Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy. 

Many people give and you could too. Are you interested in giving a gift to support students, research or our local community? There are many ways that are all so appreciated. Find out more about ways to give. 

Are you interested in engaging with a world outside of academia? Would you like to find out how colleagues are using film, festivals and a myriad of other ways to engage with lay audiences or policy makers? Perhaps you’d like to improve your media skills or learn more about different communities and how to reach them. If so then please join us on Wednesday 15 December from 14.00 – 15.30 for a staff webchat focusing on the relaunch of Kent’s Public Engagement Network (KPEN).

To join the webchat, please complete this sign-up form. 

KPEN is an informal space where academics, researchers and professional service staff can come together to discuss engagement in all its various and glorious forms. Offering a central hub for engagement, KPEN is designed to enable us to work together to improve and guide our practice and offer a safe space to support and encourage each other.

At the re-launch we will present our new public & community engagement website together with training opportunities coming up in the New Year and the introduction of weekly advice surgeries. There will be an open forum discussion where you can have your say about the way you’d like KPEN to be shaped and any other ideas or thoughts you might have around the field of engagement.

The session will be led by Kent’s Director of Engagement, Philip Pothen alongside the University’s Public & Community Engagement Officer, Jill Hurst.

It should be an informative and enjoyable session and we encourage as many of you to come along as possible. If you have any questions contact Jill Hurst.

Congratulations to Professor Juliette Pattinson on her appointment as our new Director of the Division for Arts and Humanities.

Juliette, who is a Professor in the School of History, is currently the Deputy Director (People) in the Division and an AdvanceHE Chair for Athena Swan. She replaces Professor Simon Kirchin who will stand down at the end of the year.

Juliette says: ‘I am delighted to have been appointed as the new Divisional Director. I look forward to working with colleagues in championing the arts and humanities and to joining the Executive Group. This provides an exciting opportunity to work collaboratively to shape the future of our University and the Division in the next phase of our development.’

Juliette joined the University in 2013. She was Head of our School of History from 2015-20 and, before that, at the University of Strathclyde (2012-13).

Juliette completed her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at Lancaster University in History and Women’s Studies and her PhD was a gendered oral history analysis of male and female secret agents in Nazi-occupied France. She is a socio-cultural historian of gender and war and has published on civilian men, uniformed women, partisan warfare, incarceration, national identity, cultural memory and oral history methodology.

Her monograph on the fabulously named FANYs (the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry), which examines the world’s longest established female military organisation as a case study of gender modernity, was published last year. Following a symposium held in Special Collections at Kent, she is completing an edited collection on British humour and the Second World War, which has offered some light relief over the last 21 months.

Outside work, Juliette is a keen cyclist and runner, loves scuba diving and yoga and enjoyed flying a Cessna recently. She is somewhat less enthusiastic about an upcoming skydive – something she has felt compelled to do since 1999 when she interviewed secret agents who parachuted behind enemy lines.

From Martin Atkinson | Director of HR and Organisational Development  

Following Government guidance in response to the new Covid-19 variant, we are taking extra measures to ensure the continued safety of our staff, students and everyone in our University community.

From tomorrow (Tuesday 30 November), we will be expecting everyone on campus – unless they have medical exemptions – to wear face coverings in all teaching spaces and communal areas. In shared offices and other spaces, face coverings should also be worn where social distancing cannot be maintained. This is to enable all of us to undertake planned activities as safely and securely as we can. Face coverings are available free of charge from any student reception desk.

We are also stressing the importance of regular testing – everyone coming onto campus should continue to take a Covid lateral flow test regularly and at least twice a week. You can get walk-in tests or pick up take-home kits from the Old Bank on our Canterbury campus or the Old Sports Hall at Medway, or order them online.  If you’re using a home test kit, please remember to report your lateral flow test results to the NHS, using the postcode CT2 7FS, whether they are positive or negative.

If you have symptoms or if you do test positive, you must self-isolate for 10 days from the day your symptoms started and get a PCR test as quickly as possible. If your PCR test is positive, please let your line manager know and also email covidsupport@kent.ac.uk. If someone in your household tests positive, and even if your own test is negative, you should remain at home during the self-isolation period.

Don’t forget that from tomorrow, you will also need to take a PCR test, regardless of whether you have symptoms, if you are travelling to the UK from abroad.

Vaccinations are also critical in national efforts to counter Covid-19. If you qualify for a booster jab, we would strongly encourage you to get one if you can.

As always, if you have any questions or need further support, please email covidsupport@kent.ac.uk.

The health and safety of our staff, students and University community is always at the front of our minds. By taking these extra measures, we can all work together to protect each other in the run-up to the Christmas festivities.

Martin Atkinson | Director of HR and Organisational Development

The Music Department’s final Lunchtime Concert of the term sees jazz/soul/funk trio, The Deptford Rivieras, coming to Colyer-Fergusson Hall.

The concert will take place on Wednesday 8 December at 13.10 

The trio, featuring Hammond organ, is led by saxophonist with the Jools Holland Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, Phil Veacock; the group has just released its latest album, and brings its unique combination of styles that promises to be a swinging finale to the series this term.

As always, admission is free – suggested donation £3 – please reserve a ticket in advance where possible to help manage socially-distanced seating; audience-members are encouraged to wear a mask if they wish.

For more details please take a look at the What’s On page.

The concert is generously sponsored by Furley Page Solicitors.