Tag Archives: Campus online

Workshop exploring policies of inclusion to be held in Brussels

A workshop exploring policies of inclusion, in jurisdictions around the world, will be hosted in Brussels in September by academics from Kent Law School and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).

It’s the final workshop for Inclusionary Practices, a three-year research project exploring social and economic inclusion policies in Europe, Latin America and the digital domain. The project, funded by a £26k grant from the British Academy’s International Partnership and Mobility Scheme, is led by Kent Law School Professor Toni Williams (pictured) and Professor Fabricio Polido from the UFMG in Brazil.

The workshop, ‘Constituting Inclusion through Law and Regulation: What do we now know? And where do we go from here?’, will critically examine the methodologies, legal and regulatory techniques and theoretical debates involved in the implementation of social and economic inclusion policies.

Workshop papers will explore how inclusionary practices in different jurisdictions and different social and economic domains make use of particular forms of law and regulation and consider the implications of these differences and particularities for social justice, equalities and diversities and development.  Through systematic and critical analysis and comparison of selected case studies, the workshop seeks to create additional knowledge about the meanings of inclusionary practices in different contexts. It will also consider how and to what effect law and regulation are implicated and instrumentalised to advance policies of inclusion.

Workshop case studies explore the roles of domestic and transnational regulation in respect of social exclusion and inclusionary practices in the fields of housing, security, work, education, finance and digital economies and political engagement.

The workshop will be held at Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies on Thursday 6 and Friday 7 September.

 

Development Office Beach Clean

The Development Office took part in an environmental leave day on 30 July at Reculver Towers which saw staff from the DO giving back to the local community whilst helping the environment.

Armed with rubbish bags and pickers the staff were able to collect 20 kilos of rubbish and waste with items varying from articles of clothing to shotgun shells.

With the help of Coastal Development Officer, Thomas Hawkins, from Foreshore Services the University were able to learn more about the environmental hazards and problems on our shorelines and were able to start making a difference to the local area.

Kent academic inspires new research methods at university in Ecuador

Academics and students at a university in Ecuador have been inspired to employ new interdisciplinary research methods and seek greater international collaboration following a visit by Kent Law School Senior Lecturer Dr Luis Eslava.

Dr Eslava was visiting the Universidad del Azuay, in Cuenca, where he delivered a presentation to students at the Faculty of Juridical Sciences on Kent’s distinctive critical approach to studying and teaching law. He also delivered a lecture to academics from across the university, had informal conversations with researchers and met with key Faculty and Law School staff.

During his visit, Dr Eslava ran a three-day workshop on ethnographic research methods and interdisciplinary perspectives for academics. The workshop on ‘Global (Dis)order and Critical Thought: Ethnography, History and Law’ included a short fieldwork exercise held in the city centre and was attended by staff from the schools of economics, medicine, engineering, psychology, architecture and law.

Faculty of Law Vice Dean Dr Sebastián López Hidalgo said that whilst critical approaches to law are beginning to be employed across the curriculum and in research projects at the Universidad del Azuay, interdisciplinary methodologies are still new: ‘Our institution is pursuing the professionalisation of faculty, and is particularly interested in creating international networks to put researchers in contact with experienced academics all over the world. In this context, Dr Eslava’s visit was a great opportunity to support junior faculty members in positioning their perspectives and methodologies.’

Dr Eslava has research expertise in international law. He is,Co-Director of the Centre for Critical International Law (CeCIL) at Kent, a Senior Fellow at Melbourne Law School in Australia and an International Professor at Universidad Externado do Colombia. He also serves as a core faculty member of the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School.

Sense and Sensibility – book your tickets now

Following on from their very popular 2016 production of Pride & Prejudice, the University of Kent Players are proud to present Sense & Sensibility at the Gulbenkian Theatre from 6-8 September.

The University of Kent Players is largely made up of current and former members of staff, so come along and support them in this lively production of a much-loved Jane Austen classic. A fun evening is guaranteed to be had by all!

Tickets are on sale now either from the Gulbenkian box office. 

£12 adults

£10 concessions

Sports Ready Clinic

Did you know ALL Kent staff and students can get Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation treatments for ONLY £10!?

The Sports Ready Clinic based in Medway Park is a student run clinic offering assessments, treatments, rehabilitation and injury prevention to ALL University of Kent staff and students and offer 50% DISCOUNT. And School of Sport and Exercise Sciences get access for FREE!

So whether you’re suffering with an annoying everyday niggle, struggling to start or progress your training or wanting to prevent injuries get in touch, were here to help.

 To book an appointment, please contact sportinjury@kent.ac.uk and we can get you booked in!

 To keep up to date with the latest events and offers, follow @SRCKent on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or visit our website for more information.

 

Inaugural hearing of the Airspace Tribunal in London

Kent Law School Professor Nick Grief will be sharing his expertise in international airspace law and human rights at the inaugural hearing of the Airspace Tribunal in London.

The Airspace Tribunal is an innovative research collaboration between Professor Grief https://www.kent.ac.uk/law/people/academic/Grief,_Nick.html and visual artist Shona Illingworth https://www.kent.ac.uk/smfa/staff/staff-profiles/fineart/3Illingworth.html (Reader in Fine Art at Kent’s School of Music and Fine Art). Its aim is to consider a new human right to protect peoples’ freedom to exist without physical or psychological threat from above.

The Airspace Tribunal is inviting representations from experts across a broad range of disciplines and lived experience, such as human rights, contemporary warfare, new media, environmental change, neuropsychology, conflict and forced migration. Together with Professor Grief and Shona Illingworth, speakers will include: Martin A Conway, cognitive neuropsychologist and expert on human memory and the law; Conor Gearty, professor of human rights law who has published extensively on terrorism, civil liberties and human rights; Andrew Hoskins, media sociologist known for his work on media, memory and conflict; Maya Mamish, psychologist researching integration and well-being of Syrian youth affected by armed conflict and displacement; and William Merrin, a specialist in digital media and author of Digital War.

The Tribunal’s inaugural hearing in September will also see the launch of Topologies of Air, a body of work by Shona Illingworth (commissioned by The Wapping Project) that features an immersive, multi-screen sound and video installation examining the impact of accelerating geopolitical, technological and environmental change on the composition, nature and use of airspace.

The event, supported by the University of Kent, The Wapping Project and Doughty Street Chambers, will be held at Doughty Street Chambers in Doughty Street from 10am – 4.30pm on Friday 21 September. Anybody interested in attending is asked to register online via the Eventbrite page (places are very limited).

Continued success for Kent’s European Summer Schools

The University’s 2018 European Summer Schools, at its postgraduate centres in Paris and Brussels, have reported another successful year.

Launched in 2013, the two-week summer school programme is built on Kent’s specialist knowledge and international reputation as the UK’s European university by offering a number of undergraduate students and external applicants the opportunity to participate in academic sessions and cultural activities in these two world-renowned European capitals.

This year, students at the University’s Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS) explored the theme of ‘Europe and the World’, which drew upon the academic strengths of the school. Within this context, various sub-themes were also covered; these included migration and the refugee response, the European Union’s (EU) relationship with emerging powers, and its response to the global economic crisis. Students participated in a series of guest lectures, seminars and debates delivered by academics, policy-makers, diplomats and European civil servants.

 Students at Kent’s Paris School of Arts and Culture, located in historic Montparnasse, explored the theme of ‘Revolutions’. This allowed them to gain a greater understanding of how French culture has long been at the centre of innovation in the fields of architecture, film, literature, art and philosophy

 Students spent two weeks in Paris in an interdisciplinary environment, attending seminars given by expert academics from Kent and visiting important sites and museums related to the programme. These included the Pompidou Centre, the Picasso Museum and the Jardin des Plantes.

Sophie Punt, Summer School Co-ordinator at the University, described this year as ‘one of the best to date with more students than ever before signing up’. It was successful in many respects she said but ‘overall this year’s schools have provided students with not only enhanced intercultural and analytical skills, but also provided them with an opportunity to see Europe and its role in the world from a range of different perspectives’. Looking ahead we are hoping to run a summer school at our Rome centre for 2019 which will draw on the expertise in Arts and History-based studies in the eternal city.

We would like to extend our thanks to the generous supporters of the schools including the Student Projects Fund for their generous contribution towards the scholarships.

 

 

New open access publication on mechanisms in medicine

 Jon Williamson, Professor of Reasoning, Inference and Scientific Method, and Dr Michael Wilde, Lecturer in Philosophy, both from the Department of Philosophy, have contributed to the book Evaluating Evidence of Mechanisms in Medicine (Springer, 2018), co-authored with Veli-Pekka Parkkinen, Christian Wallmann, Brendan Clarke, Phyllis Illari, Michael P Kelly, Charles Norell, Federica Russo and Beth Shaw. (Veli-Pekka, Christian, Phyllis and Federica are all former postdocs from the Department of Philosophy at Kent.) The book has been made freely available for all through Open Access.

Evidence-based medicine seeks to achieve improved health outcomes by making evidence explicit, and also by developing explicit methods for evaluating it. To date, evidence-based medicine has largely focused on evidence of association produced by clinical studies. As such, it has tended to overlook evidence of pathophysiological mechanisms and evidence of the mechanisms of action of interventions.

This book is the first to develop explicit methods for evaluating evidence of mechanisms in the field of medicine. It explains why it can be important to make this evidence explicit, and describes how to take such evidence into account in the evidence appraisal process. It develops procedures for seeking evidence of mechanisms, for evaluating evidence of mechanisms, and for combining this evaluation with evidence of association in order to yield an overall assessment of effectiveness.

The book offers a useful guide for all those whose work involves evaluating evidence in the health sciences, including those who need to determine the effectiveness of health interventions and those who need to ascertain the effects of environmental exposures.

The book follows on from Jon’s Leverhulme-funded project on Grading Evidence of Mechanisms in Physics and Biology, and also his AHRC project on Evaluating Evidence in Medicine.

For more details, to either purchase a hard copy or read free online, please see the publisher’s page.

 

 

2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award announced

The 2018 Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction has just been awarded to Anne Charnok’s Dreams Before the Start of Time (47North 2017), a novel set in London in the near future. Infertility is a thing of the past, and artificial wombs eliminate the struggles of pregnancy, and men and women can create children independently. But the novel asks what does it mean to be a parent? A child? A family?

Dr Paul March-Russell, Specialist Associate Lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature and editor of Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction was on the panel of judges for the award.

Paul praised the winning title: ‘I’m delighted that this quiet, beautifully written novel has received one of the genre’s highest accolades. It eschews melodrama and sensation for a methodically thought-out narrative which is all the more human and profound.’

Further details of the Arthur C. Clarke Award are available at: www.clarkeaward.com

Matthew Whittingham publishes PhD thesis

Kent alumnus Dr Matthew Whittingham, who completed his doctorate in the Department of Philosophy, has published his thesis as The Self and Social Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

Matthew’s book is concerned with the human individual and her relationship with the communities of which she is a member. It argues against the traditional atomistic view that individuals are essentially independent of the social relations into which they enter, and instead argues for the holistic view that we are essentially social beings who cannot exist apart from normative communities.

Matthew’s PhD was supervised by Professor Sean Sayers.

To find out more about the book, please see the publisher’s webpage here.