Dr Arvind Madan to give Distinguished Visitor Lecture on the future of primary care

Dr Arvind Madan, Director of Primary Care and Deputy National Medical Director for NHS England, will give a Distinguished Visitor Lecture on our Canterbury campus on Wednesday 18 April.

With more than 20 years of experience as a General Practitioner (GP) and having provided clinical leadership for the transformation of healthcare in the county of Kent, Dr Madan will speak on the topic: General Practice Forward View and a Vision for the Future of Primary Care.

Dr Madan will address questions including why healthcare in the UK is a contentious issue, what challenges the NHS faces, and how we can improve primary care in the future. His lecture will conclude with a Q&A session. Get involved in the discussion via Twitter using #CHSSopen18

The event takes place from 18.30 to 19.30 in Grimond Lecture Theatre 1. Entry is free and open to students, staff and visitors. For more information or to book visit the event page.

Dr Madan is part of the Hurley Group, a large multi-site general practice and urgent care provider, and also the Kings Fund Advisory Board. He also works on his own Community Interest Company, Healthy Minds, which is a peer-mediation service for children, operating in 30 schools in London.

His lecture is brought to you by the Centre for Health Services Studies (CHSS) at the University of Kent.

Pop-Up library study spaces for revision and exam period

From 9 April until the end of the Summer Term, we are excited to bring you over 280 pop-up study spaces on the ground floor of the Templeman Library.

We are also making some spaces on Floor 2 Silent during the same period. This will give you over 200 more silent spaces.

For full details of where the study spaces are please see the Library and IT News blog post.

K-Bar Supervisor Wins ‘Best Signature Cocktail’ at TUCO Competitions

It was with great excitement that K-Bar supervisor, David Cooper (pictured third from left), was announced as winner of the ‘Best Signature Cocktail’ award at the TUCO (The University Caterers Organisation) Competitions in Warwick last week.

David, who took part in the Bar Skills Competition, won the judges over with his signature coffee-based cocktail, the Café Noisette. Inspired by the French hazelnut coloured coffee, the drink featured whiskey, coffee liqueur and hazelnut syrup. In addition, David also had to create a sharing drink, a beer or cider based cocktail, and as many gin and tonics as he could in one minute.

However, David was not the only competitor representing Kent at the Competitions this year. Katy Webb from Dolche Vita wowed the judges with her coffee expertise in the Barista Skills Challenge. Sam Ranger from The Street Kitchen showed off his talent for fast food in the Campus Speed Cook Challenge. And Chefs de Cuisine Ben Elsbury and Rob Grimer plated up a delicate three course meal in the Chefs’ Challenge.

The TUCO Competitions is an annual contest which sees over 150 delegates from 50 universities compete against each other in a wide range of culinary and aristological activities.

Postgrad student Raising Awareness for Crohn’s

Bio Chemistry PhD Postgraduate, Rosemarie Gough, has studied at Kent for over five years and is reaching the completion of her PhD.

Alongside this, Rosie is going out of her way to help others by raising money for the charity Crohn’s and Colitis UK after her boyfriend was taken ill by the disease and required multiple surgeries as a result.

Rosie will be taking part in the Kent half marathon this April as part of a fundraising campaign in aid of the charity via her JustGiving page and is looking for donations from other students to help smash her fundraising goals.

Crohn’s disease is a form of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (not the same as IBS) and is still fairly unheard of amongst many of the public. Lack of research and publicity means many people stay undiagnosed and suffer in silence and fear due to embarrassment of their symptoms. Crohn’s and Colitis UK is a national charity in the battle against Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, who are fighting to achieve a better quality of life for the 300,000 people in the UK suffering physically and emotionally from Crohn’s.

New BSIS Annual International Conference podcasts

The annual student-organised BSIS International Conference that took place on 5 April can now be downloaded as a podcast or listened to online via the recently launched Beyond Brussels podcast.

The conference examined how technological changes are affecting our sense of reality, in areas such as politics, humanitarian aid and social hierarchies.

Three of the five discussions from the day can now be downloaded via iTunes or Spotify or accessed directly from the Beyond Brussels website. They are:

Cyber Radicalisation: The Effects of Modern Technology on Political Extremism Panel

Moderator: Dr. Yvan Guichaoua

Panelists: Adeline Hulin – UNESCO, David Ibsen – Counter Extremism Project, and Tommaso Virgili – European Foundation for Democracy

Listen online iTunes Spotify

Online Platforms: Power Hierarchies in a Digital Society

Interview with panellists Maryant Fernandez Perez – European Digital Rights and Gerald Hensel – Fearless Democracy

Listen online iTunes Spotify

Instrumentalising Blockchain: Humanitarian Aid and Technology Regulations

Moderator: Juan David Mendieta – Keyrock

Panelists: Niall Dennehy – AID:Tech, Ben Joakim – Disberse

Listen online iTunes Spotify

Beyond Brussels is run by a group of BSIS students, led by Executive Editor and Host Allie Elwell and Senior Editor and Host Marissa Diaz. The other students involved in the podcast are: Niki Papadogiannakis, Nadira Nasibli, Katrina Coles, Lois McLatchie, Hattie Schofield, Nadja Sorelvmo and Zoheb Masher.

With special thanks to the BSIS International Conference organising team lead by Francesca Grandolfo and Fernando Lozano Vazquez.

Kent REF 2021 panel appointments

We are pleased to announce that five distinguished researchers from Kent have been selected for sub panel membership/chairmanship from over 4,000 nominations made by subject area organisations to HEFCE*.

University representatives are:

Professor Gordon Lynch (SECL) – Chair of Sub Panel 31 Theology and Religious Studies
Professor Alisoun Milne (SSPSSR) – Member of Social Work & Social Policy (Sub Panel 20)
Professor Paul Allain (School of Arts and Graduate School) – Member of Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies (Sub Panel 33)
Professor Iain Ramsay (Kent Law School) – Member of Law (Sub Panel 18)
Professor Richard Whitman (School of Politics and International Relations) – Member of Politics and International Studies (Sub Panel 19)

Over the coming months, panel members will help to define the assessment framework and criteria for the next REF submission in 2021. They will then participate in the assessment itself during the year following submissions.

To find more about preparations for REF 2021 and a full listing of panel appointments to date, see the REF webpages.

(*Higher Education Funding Council for England)

Improve Your English – FREE English Classes

Improve your English for FREE this summer with the Centre for English and World Languages.

We offer English language classes every weekday afternoon from Monday 18 June to Thursday 19 July 2018.

The classes are for anyone aged 16 or over whose first language is not English – you don’t have to be a Kent student. They are taught by students on our CELTA teacher training course.

The classes cover the four skills of listening, reading, writing and speaking, as well as grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. You will have the chance to meet new people and practice speaking English.

To book your place, please email cewlcelta@kent.ac.uk

For more information, please visit our CEWL website.

Call for papers exploring law and sustainable development

A call for papers exploring the role of law in overcoming challenges posed by global sustainable development has been issued to postgraduate students across the social sciences and humanities faculties by Kent Law School’s Graduate Conference committee.

This year’s two-day interdisciplinary Graduate Conference, ‘Law and Millennium Goals: No-one left behind’ will be hosted at Kent Law School on Monday 4 and Tuesday 5 June. The call for papers closes on Monday 16 April.

The conference seeks to engage early career scholars in an informal, critical discussion of the legal and theoretical framework underpinning diverse themes within the sustainable development agenda; themes can include (but are not limited to):

Environmental issues
Global policy-making and strong institutions
Human rights
Corporate responsibility
Law and development
Gender inequality
Access to healthcare and medicine
Economic and social change
Transnational law
International trade

Abstract submissions, no longer than 250 words, should be sent to lawgradconference@kent.ac.uk by Monday 16 April 2018. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by Monday 30 April 2018. Contributors who would like their paper to be considered for the best internal paper prize, the best external paper prize and/or the best poster prize are asked to submit full paper submissions no later than Wednesday 25 May 2018.

The conference also includes the annual Clive Schmitthoff Memorial Lecture. This year’s lecture on Monday 4 June will be delivered by Dr Celine Tan, the Director of the Centre for Law, Regulation and Governance of the Global Economy (GLOBE) based at Warwick Law School.

All students are welcome to attend the conference which will be held on Kent’s Canterbury campus. Further details are available via email from the Graduate Conference Committee. Follow the committee’s Facebook page and/or their @KLSPGConference Twitter account for updates.

Postgraduate Heritage Walks Series – registration is now open!

The Graduate School is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the Postgraduate Heritage Walks Series, a postgraduate-run event funded by the Postgraduate Experience Awards.

Wandering and Wellbeing: revitalise mind and body and increase productivity through heritage walks in the Kentish Countryside

This exciting programme of walks will be led by postgraduate students throughout May and June 2018 and will focus on the connection between engagement with heritage and wellbeing. The walks will include visits to some of Kent’s remarkable historic villages and monuments, archaeological sites and places of natural beauty.

Registration is open to all postgraduate students, and a limited number of bursaries are offered to cover the cost of transportation and admission fees. For more information and to see the full programme, visit the webpage.

Are you a postgraduate student who has a great idea for a postgraduate event? Applications for the second round of Postgraduate Experience Awards are being accepted until Friday 27 April! Apply today.

Graduate School Prizes – nominations now open!

The Graduate School is delighted to be introducing a series of prizes to recognise the excellence of its postgraduate researchers and the outstanding work carried out by our academic and administrative staff members in support of postgraduate research and education.

The Graduate School Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:

Research Degree Supervisor (one per Faculty)
School Director of Graduate Studies
Administrator working in support of postgraduate education and/or research
Postgraduate Research Prize (one per Faculty)

Each prize will be in the sum of £500 and will take the form of a transfer to the winner’s school, centre or departmental budget for the 2018/19 financial year. The funds can be used for:

Travel and subsistence in relation to research including conference fees, books, consumables, survey costs or any other cost that can be shown to relate to their research
Staff development courses and related travel and subsistence costs

The prizes will be announced and presented at the Postgraduate Research Festival Launch Event on 18 June 2018 followed by a celebratory dinner, and the deadline for applications is 30 April 2018.

Please visit the webpage for full criteria and application information, and do not hesitate to contact the Graduate School with any queries: graduateschool@kent.ac.uk.