The Teaching Enhancement Small Support Awards (TESSAs) are small grants introduced during 2017-18, to support colleagues in enhancing teaching, learning and the student experience.

The TESSAs offer funding of between £500 and £3,000 per award, with up to £5,000 for large, high-impact, collaborative awards operating across Schools and ideally in more than one Faculty, or across Schools and PSDs. During our first two years of operation, we have awarded over £76,000 to 46 successful projects. The total funding available across both rounds in 2019-20 is expected to be up to £50,000.

Applications should be submitted by 12 noon on Tuesday 26 November 2019 for projects to start during the Spring or Summer Terms 2019-20 (with notifications of outcomes by Tuesday 10 December). There will be a second round for projects to start during the summer of 2020 or in the Autumn Term 2020-21 (for comparison and planning, the closing date last year was Tuesday 14 May 2019). Your project should not take more than one year in total.

For more information on how to apply, please visit the UELT TESSA webpage.

The School of Engineering and Digital Arts is delighted to announce that on Wednesday 20 November from 6 – 7 pm in the Jennison Lecture Theatre, John Batchelor, Professor of Antenna Technology will deliver the annual Jennison Lecture, kindly sponsored by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).

The lecture is entitled “Electronic sensing with (almost) no batteries” and will focus on how a simple RFID (radio frequency identification devices) tag can be converted into a sensing system, and how it can work with (almost) no battery at all.

After the lecture, there will be an opportunity to network, and light refreshments will be served.

All staff and students welcome as well as members of the public and members of the IET.

Click here to complete the 2019 Staff Survey

Kent’s 2019 staff survey is now live and will be open to everyone for a period of 6 weeks – until 13 November.

Inclusivity and respect are crucial characteristics of our university which should be fostered and sustained more than ever if we are to realise our Kent 2025 ambitions and be true to our values. This is particularly so during this period of organisational change and as the external environment becomes ever more volatile and challenging. Your opinions are really important to us and we want to hear your thoughts.

This survey is an excellent opportunity for you to provide confidential feedback on your perception of Kent as a place to work and help us understand some of the issues that affect your working life – what we do well and what we can do better.  We want to know how we measure up against our values and Kent 2025 ambitions during this time of organisational change.

Making significant change is never easy but the benefits to be gained through Organising for Success are real. As we progress through the different stages of the project it is important for us that you understand the changes, feel supported by your manager, have the opportunity to share your views and still believe Kent to be a good place to work.

• Be open and honest – your feedback is vital in guiding us on how to make changes to enhance your working life.
• The survey is completely anonymous.  We are not able to attribute responses to an individual.
• It is shorter than the previous survey – It should take you no longer than 10 minutes to complete.

For more information, for more information, please see our Staff Survey webpages.

If your question has not been answered here, please speak to your line manager or email: staffsurvey@kent.ac.uk

Friday 4 October is Korea Day at Gulbenkian and all staff and students are invited!

In partnership with Korean Cultural Centre UK, we are presenting:

From 5pm – Korean Chef Hyung-Soo Yim will take over our cafe, serving delicious Korean Street Food.

From 6pm – A spectacular display of digital artwork on the outside of the Gulbenkian building by artist Yiyun Kang.

7.30pm – A gig by sensational Korean band Jambinai – who use traditional instruments, but play them in a very contemporary style! They leapt to international recognition playing the closing ceremony of the Olympic winter games in PyeongChang.

The event is free to attend, and tickets for the gig are £10 for Uni Kent Staff & Students.

The Medway Collaborative Projects Initiative provides funding for staff of the three Universities at Medway and their partner colleges to collaborate on projects that will benefit all Medway students.

The funding may be used to:

•       Invest in pilot equipment/software

•       Invite external speakers or workshop facilitators

•       Activities to support collaboration.

The call for applications for funding for 2019-20 is now open. Please see our page.

The submission deadline for applications is Friday 15th November 2019.

The new series of free Lunchtime Concerts in Colyer-Fergusson Hall launches next week with the Mēla Guitar Quartet on Weds 10 October at 1.10pm.

Since being International Guitar Foundation young artists in 2015 the Quartet has gone on to release a CD on the NAXOS label in 2017, and was Park Lane Group young artists for the 2018/19 season.

The group has performed in venues such as St. James’ Church, Piccadilly; Kings Place, Hall One; and Milton Court, Barbican.

As usual, admission is free with a suggested donation of £3. Join the Music department as we lift the curtain on the new concert season!

For more details click here.

Our academic staff continue to lead the way in outstanding research and teaching, and this has been recognised in our latest promotions.

Fifty nine academic colleagues are celebrating promotion to professor, reader, senior lecturer or senior research fellow across our Faculties of Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences, with effect from 1 October 2019.

The new professors are:

Professor Vybarr Cregan-Reid, School of English; Professor Sophia Labadi, Professor Axel Stähler and Professor Ellen Swift, School of European Culture and Languages; Professor Karen Jones and Professor Jan Loop, School of History; Professor Scott Wildman, Centre for Higher and Degree Apprenticeships; Professor Dan Mulvihill, School of Biosciences; Professor Patricia Lewis and Professor Jesse O’Hanley, Kent Business School; Professor Bob Smith, School of Anthropology and Conservation; Professor Alastair Bailey, School of Economics; Professor Adrian Pabst, School of Politics and International Relations; and Professor Michelle McCarthy, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research.

Alison Ross-Green, Director of HR and Organisational Development, said: ‘The University is dependent upon the personal growth and career attainment of its academic staff to refresh, develop and strengthen our organisation for the future. Congratulations to all those promoted in 2019. Your hard work and focus on excellence help to ensure the outstanding student experience, research achievement and funding that is so important to our success going forward.’

You can see a full list of Academic Promotions 2019 here.

Picture shows: Professor Jan Loop, School of History.

We have been making improvements to our internal communications channels.

The changes, as highlighted in the Vice-Chancellor’s August Update blog, are based on feedback you have given during, for example, focus groups for the Simplifying Kent Internal Communications Project. Your wish list included a clear source of University information, improvements across our key communication channels and a more visible senior management team.

Our internal communication channels now include:

Monthly Vice-Chancellor Update
A new all-staff email on the second Tuesday of every month, covering the strategic direction of the University, key upcoming decisions/changes, highlights from Karen’s diary etc. The first update, on 10 September, is available on the OVC webpages – watch out for the next update on Tuesday 8 October.

Kent Staff Weekly
From Wednesday 2 October, we will be mailing a weekly, rather than fortnightly, all-staff e-newsletter with a round-up of latest University news and events likely to be of interest to colleagues. If you’d like your news featured, email the editor, Wendy Raeside in Corporate Communications.

Staff Guide
Launched in January 2019 and following extensive consultation with colleagues, this new guide covers everything you need to know about working at Kent, from getting started to facilities on campus. If you wish to add new information/update existing information, email communications@kent.ac.uk

Staff News
The home of latest staff news and events based on stories sent in by colleagues to share with others across the University. Tell us your latest news via this Send Us Your Story link.

Leadership Blog
This is a new channel for senior leaders across the University to update us on key strategic projects. Corporate Communications is working with senior leaders to develop a schedule for these blogs – if you have an idea for a topic that should be included, please let Tim Davies or Wendy Raeside know (email links below).

Kent-staff emails
All-staff emails are for business critical or urgent messages only. If your message meets our essential criteria, you can email your request to the Corporate Communications team.

Social media
We are currently exploring options to provide a social media channel for staff to enable colleagues, wherever they’re based, to share their news and interests. In the meantime, you can find useful updates from teams across the University via @unikentstaff on Twitter.

We’ll keep you posted as and when other changes in our staff communications are happening. Meanwhile, we welcome ideas about how we can continue to improve how we communicate – just get in touch.

Wendy Raeside and Tim Davies
Corporate Communications

On Wednesday 25 September, the School of Anthropology and Conservation (SAC) held a Climate and Environmental Emergency event, to begin to examine and discuss the way forward to reduce the School’s emissions and broader environmental impact relating to operations, research and teaching.

Humanity and the environment that supports it face a historically unparalleled existential threat from human-induced climate change and environmental degradation following a global reliance on fossil fuels and the entrenchment of unsustainable forms and levels of production and consumption of consumer goods.

The climate and environmental crisis presents both a stark warning and a threat to life and civilisation. Global emissions must decline by 45% by 2030 (from 2010 levels) and reach net-zero by around 2050 to limit the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. To achieve this, there must be rapid and far-reaching transitions in energy, land-use, buildings and infrastructure.

Academic schools have a unique mandate and responsibility to generate the necessary knowledge and human capacities to transition to an ecologically, socially and economically regenerative economy at emergency speed.

The event featured a presentation by Dr Charlie Gardner, Lecturer in Conservation Biology, on the relationship between science, academia and activism, which he has recently discussed in op-eds written for The Guardian and The Globe Post, and Tom Bell, PhD student in Social Anthropology, who is conducting fieldwork in the US on climate change activism. Undergraduate students spoke about the work that climate change activist groups Extinction Rebellion and Youth Strike 4 Climate are doing locally and nationally, Kent Union described the ongoing work they are doing to address the environmental emergency, and there was a talk from the University’s own sustainability team and their Futureproof programme.

The event pivoted on Professor Tracy Kivell declaring a climate emergency on behalf of the School. This declaration publicly and fully acknowledges the findings and recommendations of the international scientific community, pledging, among other things, to:

• Reduce emissions by at least 45% by 2025, reaching net zero by 2040 or, at the very latest, 2050.
• Establish and mandate a staff-student working group to advise on and develop actions required to meet the above commitments.
• Work across the University to declare a University-wide climate emergency and embed the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, as set out by the signing of the SDG accord by the University of Kent in 2018.

The initiative to declare a School climate emergency has been led and facilitated by a diverse group of volunteer staff and students in the School. The group itself emerged in part out of the University of Kent’s commitment to incorporate the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals into its operations and the teaching curriculum it delivers.

The process of calculating and reducing direct and indirect emissions provides a case study to demonstrate the principle and develop an approach that can be scaled up across the University.

The event was closed by Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Karen Cox: “I have been truly moved by what I’ve heard this evening. We know what the goal is, but we need to be brave and bold to get there. And we need collective ideas to move this forward.

“The University of Kent can be a thought leader and action leader in this agenda. The School of Anthropology and Conservation has my absolute commitment to do what it needs to do. I am offering an open door.”

The full text of the School’s Declaration of Climate Emergency can be viewed here.