2009
Winter
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Constitution The University’s constitution is set out in its Royal Charter, Statutes and Ordinances. The Court meets once a year to receive the University’s Annual Review and Accounts and, as appropriate, to appoint a Chancellor of the University. The Court’s membership includes representatives from many sectors of the local and national community as well as staff, student and graduate members. The Council is the executive governing body of the University and comprises lay and staff members and students, with a non-executive, lay majority. The Statutes of the University define the powers and responsibilities of the Council (and of the Court and the Senate, see below). By custom and under the advice of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Council has responsibility for the ongoing strategic direction of the University, approves major projects and receives regular reports from Committees and Executive Officers acting under statutory or delegated powers. The Senate is the academic authority of the University and comprises academic staff and student members. It directs and regulates the teaching and research of the University.
The business of the University is conducted in accordance with the seven principles identified by the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life (selflessness; integrity; objectivity; accountability; openness; honesty; leadership) and follows the further advice about governance from the Committee, the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Committee of University Chairs. The Council maintains a Register of Interests of its members and staff of the University. The Government’s response to the Dearing Report on Higher Education (1998) endorsed a recommendation that the Council should be reviewed at least once every five years. The most recent review of the Council’s effectiveness was undertaken during summer/early autumn 2008. The review included a detailed report from an External Adviser, John Lauwerys, formerly Secretary and Registrar at the University of Southampton. The review concluded that overall the Council was effective. Some changes to further enhance its operational effectiveness have been put into effect. The next review of the Council’s effectiveness will be in 2012/2013. Enquiries about the constitution and governance of the University should be directed to the Secretary of the Council.
2009 Contents 2
Introduction
4
Winter 2009
10
Staff profile – Gülnur Aybet
12
Spring 2009
18
Staff profile – Paul Allain
20
Summer 2009
26
Student profile – Kent Volunteers
28
Autumn 2009
34
Faculties
38
Rising to the challenge of recession
40
New music building
42
Institutional Plan for 2009-12
44
Books
47
Open Lectures
48
Summary of financial performance
50
Awards, appointments, promotions and deaths
52
Principal officers
28
4
21
29
6
12
23
30
7
12
25
31
8
14
25
33
University of Kent 1
Annual Review
2 University of Kent
Annual Review
Professor Julia Goodfellow – introduction The University’s outstanding results in the 2008 national Research Assessment Exercise laid the foundation for a very successful year in 2009. As a direct outcome of this assessment, which placed Kent 24th out of 159 UK institutions on the basis of its 4* research, the University has been allocated an increase of 46% in research support funding by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. This is an exceptional result and congratulations go to all staff whose work contributed to this outcome. In addition, we have been awarded an extra 250 student places for the Medway campus. This is particularly significant at a time when the government is beginning to cut back on expansion of undergraduate numbers. Combining the outcomes from research assessment and increased student numbers leads to a significant increase in funding from HEFCE for the academic year 2009/10 even though we are beginning to see cut backs because of the general economic situation. Students also gave the University as a whole a resounding vote of confidence, once again rating Kent among the UK’s top universities in the annual National Student Survey. The School of Biosciences achieved an outstanding 99% of students satisfied or highly satisfied with their time at Kent.
We have also had exceptional success in our fundraising activities. Although the University has been working with alumni and others for some time now, over the past year we have increased our fundraising efforts considerably. I am delighted to note that we have received a very generous donation from the Colyer-Fergusson Trust that, together with a previous donation and funding allocated under the government’s Matched Funding Scheme, will allow us to build a new music building. This was a fantastic achievement and consolidates our exceptional music provision, which includes a range of orchestras and choirs, the ArtsFest and also the Colyer-Fergusson Concert, held annually in Canterbury Cathedral. In addition, our Hong Kong alumni have continued to be extremely generous in their support for studentships for students from Hong Kong and China. This year saw the launch of a formal Hong Kong alumni association, at an alumni event held in Hong Kong in October. The event opened up new possibilities for donations to the Hong Kong alumni fund, and a number of alumni have already very kindly taken up that opportunity. Every university revisits its overarching strategy on a regular basis and, in the summer, the University Council endorsed our new three-year institutional plan, developed after extensive consultation across the institution. This builds on many areas of existing activity, but sets the high level goals to which we aspire. It is these which will underpin our position as a leading university, building up our international esteem and networks, widening our research volume while increasing quality and enhancing our postgraduate position. We recognise that to achieve these goals, we need to be innovative, enterprising and creative, and to run our operations efficiently and sustainably.
Finally, like all universities, we are considering the implications of the proposals outlined in the government’s framework for higher education, Higher Ambitions: The Future of Universities in a Knowledge Economy, which seeks to align university activity with the needs of the economy. We are also preparing for the introduction of the Research Excellence Framework, the successor to the Research Assessment Exercise, for which we are now considering the wider impact that follows from our excellent research outputs. On a more general level, we await details of any government-wide cuts in public spending which may affect universities across the UK. I am quite sure that, with the quality of our staff, students and members of Council, we will weather whatever challenges the next few years will bring, and will continue to provide the high quality HE provision of which Kent and Medway region is so proud.
Professor Julia Goodfellow CBE, FMed Sci Vice-Chancellor
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Winter 2009
Apollinaire book French best-seller A book on the drawings and paintings of poet Guillaume Apollinaire by Professor Peter Read, Director of the University of Kent at Paris, not only became a best-seller in France but was also adopted by French fashion designer Sonia Rykiel who, from January 2009 onwards, used images from its pages as the centrepiece of window displays in her main shops and boutiques in 20 capital cities around the world. Les Dessins de Guillaume Apollinaire by Peter Read and Claude Debon, Emeritus Professor at the University of Paris (New Sorbonne), was published by Buchet-Chastel. The book, which presents colour reproductions of hundreds of previously unpublished drawings and paintings by Apollinaire, received extensive media coverage, including a full-page article in Paris Match and illustrated reviews in most of the French national newspapers, including Le Monde and La Croix.
Space Society tour Collider The University’s Space Society won a trip for 15 members to visit the European Organisation for Nuclear Research’s headquarters in Geneva, where they had an opportunity to privately tour and learn about the Large Hadron Collider. The trip was part of their overall prize for winning the Institute of Physics’ Best Overall Student Society Competition 2008. Affiliated with Kent Union, the Space Society has over 60 members, drawn from a broad range of academic subject areas.
“Fashion designer Sonia Rykiel used images from its pages as the centrepiece of window displays in her main shops and boutiques in 20 capital cities around the world”
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Winter 2009
War and Medicine Ulf Schmidt, Professor of Modern History and Director of Research at the School of History, made a substantial contribution to War and Medicine, a major exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, London. Professor Schmidt’s contribution to the exhibition, which spanned the Crimean War and today’s conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, was on the subject of human experimentation, particularly in relation to medical war crimes committed by German doctors during the Second World War. He is a well-known and respected authority in this area, having researched and written extensively on subjects such as the history and theory of human experimentation, the trials of Nazi doctors at Nuremberg, and Karl Brandt, Adolf Hitler’s physician, escort and organiser of the Nazi euthanasia programme from 1939.
Changing Parenting Culture Changing Parenting Culture, a major new research seminar series, was launched at the University. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the series, brought together researchers, parenting organisations and policymakers from Britain and abroad. The research presented examined the ‘new parenting culture’ that informs contemporary child-rearing practices. The seminars considered the way practices such as infant feeding, sleeping and discipline are influenced and modified by the demands of modern parenting culture, widening the agenda of policymakers, many of whom directly affect the experience of parents, and better inform public thinking on these issues.
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Winter 2009
Open Lecture series launched by Lord Adonis The Open Lecture Series began with the Chancellor’s Lecture, given by Lord Adonis, Minister of State for Transport. Andrew Adonis was a Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College, Oxford, before becoming a public policy editor of the Financial Times and a columnist and leader writer on the Observer. He was appointed Minister of State for Transport in October 2008. Other speakers in the series included Professor Michael Baum and Professor Steve Jones who gave the Darwin Lecture entitled ‘Is Human Evolution Over?’
New Memorial Scholarship launched Sky News joined forces with the University to launch a new scholarship, in the name of the late Sky News presenter Bob Friend. Firstyear student Alan McGuinness received his award from Professor Tim Luckhurst, Head of the Centre for Journalism, and John Ryley, Head of Sky News, at a ceremony at the University’s Medway campus. John Ryley also delivered the first Bob Friend Memorial Lecture, an event that helped celebrate the 20th anniversary of the launch of Sky News. The scholarship will be awarded annually to the student who the panel believes shows the most academic and professional merit, as well as potential for the future. The winner will be chosen by Sky News, the Centre for Journalism and the Friend family, and the scholarship will pay their first-year tuition fees. The winning student is also guaranteed a four-week work placement at Sky News.
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“We are one of the most culturally diverse institutions in the region and we felt we should celebrate our diversity and multiculturalism in the best way possible”
WorldFest – A new University festival Students and staff from across the University came together to celebrate WorldFest, a brand new four-day festival at the Canterbury campus. The festival, which was open to the public, included drama, music, dance, film, comedy, food and fun from around the globe. Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Alex Hughes said: ‘The University of Kent is one of the most culturally diverse institutions in the region and we felt we should celebrate our diversity and multiculturalism in the best way possible.’ WorldFest was supported by the University of Kent, Kent Union and the Gulbenkian Theatre and has become an annual event. It will take place 22-27 February 2010.
Annual Review
Winter 2009
New postgraduate history scholarship Paul Dyer, Non-Executive Director and co-founder of the Maidstone-based Towergate Partnership, Europe’s largest private insurance organisation, has established a postgraduate history scholarship at the University. Mr Dyer, who graduated from the University with a BA in Politics, launched the scholarship with a talk and an exhibition of his personal flintlock collection. More than 40 staff and students from the School of History, ranked second out of 83 history departments nationwide in the government’s 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), attended the launch. The students included those from the School’s acclaimed War Studies programme.
“Mr Dyer, who graduated from the University with a BA in Politics, launched the scholarship with a talk and an exhibition of his personal flintlock collection”
Top award for Kenya alumnus Benson Okita-Ouma, an alumnus of the Durrell institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE), has been appointed a Moran of the Burning Spear (MBS), one of the highest citizen awards in Kenya. President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya awarded the MBS to Mr Okita-Ouma in recognition of his outstanding service to rhinoceros conservation and national development. The MBS is awarded annually in recognition of outstanding and distinguished services rendered to Kenya. Ben Okita was at DICE between 2003 and 2004. After receiving his MSc in Conservation Biology with Distinction, he went on to become Senior Scientist, and, more recently, Rhino Co-ordinator, with the Kenyan Wildlife Service. DICE postgraduate alumni have won increasingly prestigious awards in conservation, including the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Young Conservationist of the Year Award and a National Geographic Society Award for Conservation Leadership.
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Winter 2009
New Biomedicine Research Group at the University The Biomedicine Research Group (BioMeRG) at the University of Kent was launched with a lecture by Peter Goodfellow, Honorary Professor of Genetics at the School of Biosciences. Professor Goodfellow’s lecture and the launch event were attended by representatives from a range of key organisations including the Kent and Medway Comprehensive Local Research Network; William Harvey Hospital; Kent Cancer Trust; Kent & Medway NHS & Social Care Partnership Trust and the East Kent University Hospitals Trust. BioMeRG aims to be a hub for high impact research in the fields of clinical and veterinary medicine, and to translate basic research into therapeutic applications locally, nationally and internationally.
Postgraduate Open Day Following the launch of the Graduate School last year, the University held its first ever Open Day to give prospective postgraduates the opportunity to find out more about the extensive range of full and part-time programmes offered at Canterbury, Medway, Brussels and the new campus at Paris. The event was well attended with academic staff on hand to give course advice, and admissions staff available to answer questions about applications and funding. Prospective students also had the opportunity to learn about the funding schemes available to them, including the University’s £3.5 million scholarship fund.
“BioMeRG aims to be a hub for high impact research in the fields of clinical and veterinary medicine, and to translate basic research into therapeutic applications”
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Winter 2009
Mathematics masterclasses Some of the brightest young mathematicians from schools across Kent enrolled for a series of mathematics masterclasses at the University’s Canterbury campus. The aim was to support gifted children in the local community, and the masterclasses for the Year 9 pupils began with ‘Leonardo’s Rabbits and Alice’s Ice’, an exploration of number sequences describing growth in nature from breeding rabbits to growing ice crystals. The series was supported by the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Participating schools included Canterbury’s Barton Court and The Skinners’ School in Royal Tunbridge Wells.
Chemistry research recognised
Architecture students work with local school
Research by the University’s internationally renowned Functional Materials Group was the cover story for Angewandte Chemie International Edition, the world’s leading journal for chemistry research.
Nineteen second-year students from the University’s Kent School of Architecture presented their designs for an extended school building to their ‘pupil-clients’ from the Longfield Academy.
The Group’s research, part of which was conducted in association with Eindhoven University of Technology, used cryo-electron tomography to observe synthetic polymers folding in a manner similar to that of proteins in living systems; the first time that such a process has been observed. The Group also discovered that the folding pattern could be controlled by changes in the molecular structure of the polymer. It is hoped that these findings will open new avenues in the quest to mimic the attributes of proteins found in nature, a development that could lead to improvements in the ways some drug therapies are administered.
Following its launch in 2008, the project has involved the Longfield Academy pupils from the beginning and gave the students an opportunity to work for a real client on a complex design problem. They were required to draw up their own design proposals for a new building at the school while engaging with the pupils as a group. During the course of the project, the KSA students received a mentoring session with architects Jestico + Whiles. Longfield Academy is a partner school of the University of Kent.
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Gülnur Aybet Dr Gülnur Aybet is Lecturer in International Relations in the School of Politics and International Relations. An increasingly frequent media commentator and expert on the impact of political change in Turkey, she spent some time this year at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC after wining a prestigious scholarship. 2009 has definitely been an eventful year in my life. However, it did not occur to me at the start of the year that Islam would have had any part of it. To some extent I always knew that my research project (and my new book) on The Transformation of Modern Turkey and its Transatlantic Relationship would not be a simple narrative on Turkey’s relations with the EU and the United States. Studying Turkey these days involves such a deeply engrossing study of culture and society that it is impossible to ignore their impact on Turkey’s internal political transformation and subsequently its multi-dimensional foreign policy choices. I was awarded a prestigious public policy scholarship by the Woodrow Wilson Center, for International Scholars in Washington DC, to work on this project from April to September this year. It was at the Wilson Center, where my research led me to the underlying causes of Turkey’s transformation (starting with the Turk-Islam synthesis initiated by the military coup in 1980), that I realised that the division between the emerging visibility of conservative Islam and the staunchly defensive secularist population in Turkey is in itself a microcosm of the wider tensions between the two cultures in global society. I was brought up to believe that the two were not mutually exclusive, since I come from Istanbul, and to me, culture is one thing, the sphere of personal belief is another. But after observing growing pockets of isolated Islamic communities in Europe, and the rise of political Islam in my own country of origin, I was confronted with the disturbing notion that Islam practiced as a way of life by some Muslims may not be compatible with Western or European culture. While pondering these different aspects of what it is to be a Muslim in a modern liberal western society, I found out that I had been nominated as one of the top 20 most powerful Muslim women in Britain. The
awards were organised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and The Times newspaper. The judging panel included Baroness Sarah Hogg, former head of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit, and Michael Binyon, the diplomatic editor for The Times. I was also chosen, as one of the 13 women on the list, to take part in a photo shoot as a special feature in the Saturday Times magazine. I was delighted to meet many wonderful women holding prominent powerful positions in society, including a shadow cabinet minister, and the legal ombudsman for England and Wales. Some had CBEs. It was a particular delight to meet Mishal Husain, BBC News 24 and World News’ anchorwoman. The award ceremony was held in Manchester, and another ‘powerful’ Muslim woman, the founder and creator of Coffee Republic, Sahar Hashemi, was our keynote speaker. 2009 has indeed been eventful. A week after the awards ceremony, I was asked on various BBC news programmes to commentate on the live coverage of President Obama’s first official trip abroad to Turkey and his outreach to the Islamic world. Two days after, I was in Washington, at the Wilson Center, attending a conference on Muslim Women Reformers, organised by the director of the Wilson Middle East Program, Haleh Esfandiari. I still believe that differences between modern western women who come from an Islamic heritage, and those who practice Islam as a way of life, are predominantly culturally driven. However, my experience in America and meeting the other women on the power list in the UK, also taught me that the two groups can exist together perfectly well in a liberal western society and that the differences are not as straightforward as the crude labels we see in Turkish society today between ‘secular’ and ‘Islamist’. The book on Turkey is proving to be a very pleasant challenge indeed.
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Spring 2009
DICE success with Darwin Initiative awards The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has awarded the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) four grants under the Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species. The Darwin Initiative, announced by the UK government at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, aims to assist countries rich in biodiversity but poor in financial resources to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity through the funding of collaborative projects that draw on UK biodiversity expertise. Since 1992, the Darwin Initiative has invested £65.3 million in 602 projects in 145 countries. DICE has been among the main recipients of Darwin Initiative funding, for projects as varied as conserving axolotls in Mexico to reintroducing paradise flycatchers in the Seychelles.
Colyer-Fergusson Concert The Colyer-Fergusson Concert, one of the most exciting events in the University of Kent’s cultural calendar, took place in Canterbury Cathedral with performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No 3 in E flat major, ‘Eroica’, and Haydn’s Mass in Time of War, which draw on the life and actions of Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the most powerful military and political leaders of all time. The Concert was given by the University Chorus and Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Susan Wanless, Kent’s Director of Music. The leader was Dr Jeremy Ovenden; soprano Victoria McLaughlin; mezzo-soprano Miranda Westcott; tenor Andrew Macnair; and bass John Bernays.
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“DICE has been among the main recipients of Darwin Initiative funding”
10th largest increase in research funding Following the recent review of the quality of research conducted by British universities, the Research Assessment Exercise, the University was allocated an increase of 46% a year in research support funding by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. This was the 10th largest increase in cash terms, amounting to an extra £3.8 million next year, and the 4th largest increase in percentage terms amongst the top ten. This result is recognition of the performance of Kent in terms of the quality of research conducted by its academics, the value of grants it has won, and the performance of its postgraduate research students. The award was seen as a resounding vote of confidence by the government’s funding body for the University’s research strategy. Kent is one of the country’s top research universities, with world-leading research in all three faculties, and is making a substantial contribution to skills and innovation in the region.
Annual Review
Spring 2009
Hong Kong business leader at KBS Professor Eddy Fong, Chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, gave a lecture on the Chinese economy to students and staff at the Kent Business School. An Honorary Visiting Professor, Eddy Fong is an inspirational business leader with extensive knowledge of Hong Kong, China and the Asian economy. Professor Fong retired as Senior Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Hong Kong after 30 years, and is now Chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission and Senior Adviser to Tricor Services. Highlights of his distinguished career and recognition of his professional and public achievements include an Honorary Doctorate in Civil Law from the University of Kent in 1997 and the award of a Gold Bauhinia Star from the Hong Kong government in 2008. Professor Fong is also Chairman of the University of Kent’s Hong Kong alumni committee. He has the distinction of being the first person from Hong Kong to graduate from the University, having obtained a degree in Accounting in 1969.
Woolf College officially opened Woolf College was officially opened by Allan Willett CMG, Her Majesty’s LordLieutenant for Kent. The College, named in honour of Virginia Woolf, a major English novelist and public intellectual of the twentieth century, provides a focal point for postgraduate study, and offers first-class en-suite accommodation for 544 graduate students, together with a state-of-the-art, 496-seat lecture theatre, seminar rooms and space for social activity. After the launch, Vice-Chancellor Professor Julia Goodfellow presented a prize to Electronics student Hamza Al-Akesh, winner of the competition to design a logo for Woolf College.
University welcomes £1m funding for Cultural Olympiad The University was part of a consortium of 13 universities which secured £1 million funding from the Higher Education Funding Council to deliver a series of cultural events, known as the Creative Campus Initiative, in the run- up to the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. An additional £1 million in matched funding will be contributed by project partners, making the total funding the largest ever regional award to a university consortium to support cultural activity. Together, the universities will create a major touring exhibition in response to Olympic and Paralympic values, with each institution being allocated at least ten Olympic sports to respond to in an artistic and creative way.
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Spring 2009
QAA vote of confidence The University has received a resounding endorsement of its approach to managing academic standards from the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA). The QAA’s assessment followed an institutional audit of the University in November 2008. Based on its findings, the QAA expressed its highest degree of confidence in Kent’s ‘present and future management of the academic standards of its awards’ and in ‘the quality of the learning opportunities available to students’. During the audit, the QAA team held meetings with both staff and students and also consulted a wide range of quality assurance documentation in order to explore in detail the ways in which Kent manages the academic aspects of its provision. The Audit Team recognised the importance placed by the University on enhancement within its normal quality assurance processes, acknowledging how Kent regards QA as a means to improve the learning experience of its students. The Audit Team also identified specific examples of good practice, including the broad range of advisory and support services and development opportunities for staff and students provided by UELT. The team highlighted the University’s extensive use of its information management system as a means of facilitating staff engagement in quality assurance and quality enhancement; the further developments in the scope and utility of the University’s Progression Analysis Tool; and the development of programme specifications for research degrees.
National recognition for carbon reduction initiatives The University’s commitment to measuring, managing and reducing its carbon footprint year-on-year has been certified by the award of the Carbon Trust Standard. The Carbon Trust Standard, set up and managed by the Carbon Trust, works with leading organisations to certify their performance in controlling and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. It provides an objective benchmark against which to assess an organisation’s commitment to, and success in, addressing its climate change impact. Kent is one of only eight universities in the UK to receive such an accreditation. To achieve this status the University has measured its carbon footprint, met an absolute reduction in its CO2 emissions, and provided evidence that it is managing carbon in an appropriate manner through effective governance, accurate carbon accounting and carbon management programmes.
“The University has measured its carbon footprint, [and] met an absolute reduction in its CO2 emissions”
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Spring 2009
Lord Hannay gives Woolf College Inaugural Lecture Lord Hannay, Chair of the Board of the United Nations Association-UK (UNA-UK), pictured below with Valerie Marshall, Chair of Council and Professor Keith Mander, delivered the Woolf College Inaugural Lecture. In his talk, entitled ‘Energy Security and Climate Change: what role for Europe?, he discussed why only a united response to these two challenges will protect the interests of European countries and enable Europe to play a proper role in solving global problems and why these two challenges are linked together. Lord Hannay’s book, New World Disorder: The UN After the Cold War – An Insider’s View, was published in 2008. After a long career with the Diplomatic Service, he was the British Special Representative for Cyprus between 1996 and 2003, and a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, which submitted its report in December 2004.
Social policy expert presents research findings to Prime Minister Peter Taylor-Gooby, Professor of Social Policy, presented his research on current developments in public attitudes to a breakfast meeting at Number 10 Downing Street. The meeting, themed ‘Where now for the progressive consensus?’, was attended by the Prime Minister and Liam Byrne, Minister for the Cabinet Office, and chaired by Ed Miliband, Minister for the Department of Energy and Climate Change. During the meeting, the Prime Minister emphasised the challenges faced by the British government at a time when the financial crisis limits the available resources. Professor Taylor-Gooby presented the Prime Minister with some of his recent research on the impact of the recession on public attitudes to migration, climate change policies, trust in government and social welfare, and also on general social values, which had been requested earlier by the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit.
“Lord Hannay, Chair of the Board of the United Nations Association-UK (UNA UK), delivered the Woolf College Inaugural Lecture”
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Spring 2009
University appoints College Master for Medway The University of Kent has appointed Jane Glew as its first-ever College Master for the Medway campus. Ms Glew combines her new role with her current positions as Deputy Director and Head of Admissions for the Centre for Sports Studies. As College Master, she is responsible for overall student welfare at Medway and will work alongside other student support areas at the University, such as the Disability and Dyslexia Support Service and the Careers Advisory Service. Ms Glew joined the University of Kent’s Centre for Sports Studies in 2002. She is responsible for the day-to-day operational management of the University’s three undergraduate sports programmes, plus its postgraduate course in Sports Therapy and Rehabilitation.
Student e-startup one of Europe’s best A start-up company formed by postgraduate computing students at Kent has been named as one of the 20 best e-startups in Europe. Chootta Ltd, formed in 2008 by Sebastien Marion, Pulitha Liyanagama and Philipp Mohr, entered Seedcamp 2009, an annual event that brings together Europe’s top young webbased technology entrepreneurs and a world-class network of experienced developers, investors and mentors. After some fierce competition, Chootta was selected by Seedcamp as one of only 20 companies that would attend its pinnacle networking event in London at the end of April – an experience that Philip Mohr has described as one that has ‘already opened several doors to major opportunities’. Chootta’s main product is Comufy, an innovative web-based platform for controlling multiple communication channels.
“Choota was selected by Seedcamp as one of the 20 companies that would attend its pinnacle networking event in London”
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Spring 2009
Channel ecology management The European Regional Development Fund has made an award of €5,825,462 for the completion of the third and final phase of the Channel Habitat Atlas for Marine Resource Management (CHARM), a project in which the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) at the University of Kent has played a major role. The primary aim of the Atlas is to act as a contemporary reference source for the Channel’s marine environment and to provide decision-makers with the necessary information to help in the management of marine ecosystems and living resources, including 16 fish species. Since 2004, DICE has led a series of Anglo-French projects to create an atlas containing all known data relating to the English Channel’s marine biological resources. The first phase of the project (CHARM 1) involved mapping the Eastern part of the Channel, and the second (CHARM 2) extended its ambit to the mid-Channel. Now, with the funding for the third phase firmly in place, the partnership will be able to extend its remit to the entire Channel, and involve a new and even wider range of cross-channel partners.
New partnership in healthcare education The University joined forces with Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust to launch a unique Master’s degree in minimally invasive surgery. The Centre for Work and Learning, based at the Medway campus, is working directly with the Trust to deliver the programme in laparoscopic surgery. The Master’s degree also ushered in a new relationship between the University and the Trust, which was formalised by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two organisations. The Memorandum sets out a commitment on both sides to develop professional healthcare education in Kent and to share skills, knowledge, facilities and research findings, with the ultimate aim of improving standards of patient care.
“Since 2004, DICE has led a series of AngloFrench projects to create an atlas containing all known data relating to the English Channel’s marine biological resources”
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Paul Allain Paul Allain is Professor of Theatre and Performance and Director of Drama and Theatre Studies in the School of Arts. An internationally renowned expert in Polish Theatre, he is currently researching the legacy of Jerzy Grotowski’s work and is also collaborating with the Moscow Art Theatre School on a two-year research project, Training for Performance – Tradition and Innovation: Britain/Russia. 2009 was the UNESCO Year of Grotowski, remembering the life and work of this experimental Polish theatre director ten years after his death. I have been coordinating British celebrations through my AHRC-funded British Grotowski project (2006-09). This has involved numerous translations and several edited publications, including a collection of director Peter Brook’s writings on Grotowski, as well as a major international conference at Kent in June. This summer gathering of young and old Grotowskians was made all the more special by my receipt on day one of a medal from the Polish Ministry of Culture for my services to Polish culture. My writing on Poland began with my PhD twenty years ago, just as the Berlin Wall was falling, so it was gratifying to have this long-term contribution recognised. Although there are some things about Poland one would rather forget, it is still an extraordinary country and has a very rich culture, especially its theatre. The Grotowski year has taken me to Wroclaw twice in 2009, including with a group of students for a festival perhaps best remembered for the fact that choreographer Pina Bausch didn’t turn up for the public talk and then was reported two days later as having died. Her company performed nevertheless, their true feelings breaking out only at the curtain call. I couldn’t help wondering if there will be a UNESCO Year of Bausch in ten years time. How will we remember her? More positive memories of my year include presenting two of Grotowski’s films in New York at the Lincoln Centre and giving a
paper in French at the Sorbonne. Hmmm. Perhaps I am dressing up the latter in a typically theatrical manner, the passing of time sweetening the memory. A two-day workshop for teachers at the Barbican Centre and radio appearances on Night Waves and The Strand on the BBC World Service were much more within my comfort zone. Grotowski really had some impact, although he was an anomalous theatre director, only making performances for approximately one third of his life, the rest spent doing research. I wonder how he would have done in the Research Excellence Framework… The project has gone so much further than I could have anticipated. You might have noticed some exhibition boards that brightened up the Grimond building’s exterior in June. These then travelled to London and Aberystwyth along with scenographic drawings, films, posters, costumes and a scaled-down replica of a Grotowskian theatre set. We also presented an exhibition of 45 photographs of Grotowski’s last performance in the Olivier Theatre foyer at the National Theatre. Dealing with the Low Emissions Zone for a Polish van driver has shown me that research, as well as being about having significant and life-changing ideas that will never be forgotten (or so we hope), can’t ignore the daily nitty gritty. Back now to sorting out the timetable for the drama spaces for our new Arts building – a task I face as the new Head of Drama, though not without some excitement (mixed with trepidation). I am bound to forget something…
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Summer 2009
£5 million share in health research award Kent was one of three universities in the south-east to receive a share of £5 million to provide research support services to the NHS in Kent, Surrey and Sussex. The award was made by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and will support the recently formed Research Design Service South East (RDS South East), an organisation that aims to increase the volume and quality of successful grant applications for NIHR funding, and to provide consistency across England in the support provided. The RDS South East is a collaboration between the University’s Centre for Health Services Studies, the Faculty of Health and Social Science at the University of Brighton and the Postgraduate Medical School at the University of Surrey.
Students rank Kent as one of the best According to the National Student Survey 2009 (NSS), the Medway School of Pharmacy had the highest level of any HE institution for student satisfaction. The School is a unique collaboration between the University of Greenwich and the University of Kent. Students also gave the University as a whole a resounding vote of confidence, once again rating Kent among the UK’s top universities with the School of Biosciences achieving an outstanding 99% student satisfaction rating. This followed the news earlier in the year that Kent was ranked 12th in the UK for student satisfaction in The Sunday Times University Guide 2009. The Medway School of Pharmacy opened its doors to its first 80 students in 2004. Today, it has more than 550 undergraduate and 100 postgraduate students, and has a portfolio of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The School receives the support of the international pharmaceutical company Pfizer Ltd.
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Summer 2009
University builds on its China links The University is building on its existing links with China by participating in the Linking Sino-European Universities through Mobility (LiSUM) project, which has been awarded €4.5 million funding by the European Commission. LiSUM involves ten universities from the EU and ten from China, with the University of Kent being the only UK representative.
“Kent’s involvement will provide our students with further opportunities to experience an international dimension to their studies”
The project will be led by Ghent University in Belgium and its main aim is to foster mutual enrichment and better understanding between the EU and China through the exchange of people, knowledge and skills at higher education level. Kent’s involvement will enable the University to offer further opportunities for our students to experience an international dimension to their studies, either at first hand or through the teaching of visiting academics.
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Summer 2009
Kent helps local businesses to improve their performance The Centre for Employment, Competitiveness and Growth (ECG) helped improve the performance of more than 50 local businesses through a one-day workshop on leadership for growth and performance. Part of an ongoing series, the workshop was held at Kent Business School and participants included owner/senior managers from a range of small and medium sized enterprises as well as representatives from the Federation of Small Business and Thanet & East Kent Chamber of Commerce. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, it was a direct output of an ongoing ECG performance measurement and engagement project titled Promoting Sustainable Performance. Also as part of the series, ECG held an event entitled ‘Promoting Sustainable Performance: A Model for SME Performance and Growth’, which focused on the importance of fostering interaction between the research and business communities. Participants included senior decision makers from a number of UK research funding councils, local councils and government.
Mobile planetarium launched The University’s Centre for Astrophysics and Planetary Science (CAPS) has launched Kent SEPnet Astrodome, a state-of-the-art mobile planetarium. Pupils from St Stephen’s Primary School, Canterbury, attended the launch of the Astrodome, which was officially opened by Vice-Chancellor Professor Julia Goodfellow. The Kent SEPnet Astrodome was purchased as part of the University’s celebrations of the International Year of Astronomy with funds from the South East Physics Network (SEPnet) and is one of the most sophisticated in the UK. It will be used by CAPS staff in schools across the region to give pupils greater insight into astronomy and space science. It can accommodate 30 pupils at a time and is inflated in about 30 minutes.
“The Kent SEPnet Astrodome was purchased as part of the University’s celebrations of the International Year of Astronomy”
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Summer 2009
Kent rises to the top of Green League table The University was ranked 21st out of 127 UK universities in the latest People & Planet’s Green League table – the University was previously ranked 48th. Published exclusively by Times Higher Education, the Green League provides universities with the most comprehensive benchmark on sustainability. Among its aims, the League seeks to improve environmental performance in universities by raising the profile of environmental issues and creating a competition mechanism to drive up standards in the sector. It uses data submitted by institutions to the campaigning group People & Planet and estate management statistics gathered by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) for institutions across the UK.
Tizard Director reviewing services for adults with intellectual disabilities The Department of Health has commissioned Professor Jim Mansell, Director of Kent’s Tizard Centre, to carry out a review of services for adults with profound and multiple intellectual disabilities. The intention is that the review will form the basis for policy guidance to local authorities and the National Health Service next year in a move to improve services to the 28,000 adults in England who are among the most disabled people in society. Professor Mansell is being assisted by the Profound and Multiple Learning Disability Network, which includes families, professionals and voluntary organisations.
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Summer 2009
Wildlife on the buses Buses in Canterbury featured an exhibition of Kentish wildlife photography by staff and students from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology. The exhibition was part of the Creative Campus initiative, a cultural change programme at the University that aims to cultivate an inspirational learning environment in which ideas are shared and innovation promoted, providing greater opportunities for consultation and participation by staff, students and the wider community. Earlier in the year, as part of this initiative, members of the Conservation Society launched a project to create a wildflower meadow on the Canterbury campus. which it is hoped will make a positive contribution to the campus and its biodiversity in years to come.
“The exhibition was part of the Creative Campus initiative, a cultural exchange programme at the University that aims to cultivate an inspirational learning environmen�
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Summer 2009
MBA students lend expertise to Kenyan youth business project A Kenyan youth project has benefited significantly from the knowledge and expertise of two MBA students from Kent Business School (KBS). Miriam Demirates and Reabetswe Kgoroeadira spent four weeks of their summer vacation helping Wilomo International, an organisation dedicated to developing the talents of Kenyan youth, with the Marera Youth Group (MYG) project near Kisumu in the north-west of the country. The MYG runs a brick-baking enterprise and assists sweet potato cultivation. However, despite the enthusiasm and commitment of local youth, both projects regularly suffer from adversity and setbacks often beyond their control, such as unpredictable rainfall patterns. During their trip, Miriam and Rea helped improve relevant skills for the MYG through training, promotion and education in all aspects of entrepreneurship and small business management. Their achievements included helping the Group research and analyse other economic opportunities with a better return on investment, while taking into account their short and long-term prospects to guarantee the Group sustainable economic empowerment. The pair also played a key role in mobilising the Marera community, meeting community leaders and youth groups, as well as leading or participating in community business workshops and seminars.
Kent research underpins new Care and Support Green Paper Research led by Professor Julien Forder from the Personal Social Services Research Unit played a key role in the development of the government’s new Green Paper on the future funding of care and support services in England. His work provided detailed analysis of the care and support system in England, looking in particular at alternative funding structures. The cross-government Green Paper, Shaping the Future of Care Together, introduced the radical new concept of a National Care System. The social care system in England is currently means-tested and covers everything from home help with washing and dressing through to full-time residential care.
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Kent volunteers support Tanzanian schools Earlier this year, a group of students and alumni from Kent spent six weeks in Tanzania to support efforts to improve the provision of education in East Africa by distributing textbooks to schools. The books had been collected as part of the READ (Realising Education, Achieving Development) International book project. The trip was made by Louise Phillips and Elliot Baker, who graduated in July, and Helene Rousseau, Pauline Zanetti, Elisa Lewis and Eva Comba, all second-year Politics & International Relations students. They were part of a group of student volunteers who had been so impressed with the work of READ – at a national level the charity has shipped over 564,000 books since 2003 – that, in 2008, they established a new local branch, READ Book Project Kent. The student volunteers spent the following months collecting disused Key Stage 3 and GCSE textbooks from secondary schools across the region and raising funds to ship them to East Africa. They collected 15,000 suitable textbooks and raised £8,000, beating their set target of £7,500, by hosting and taking part in numerous fundraising events including campus book drives, cake sales, music performances and the Three Peaks Challenge. They also set up collection points across the Canterbury campus, which were used to collect university-level books and novels that were then sold to raise funds. Louise Phillips explained ‘Every book project runs semi-independently with support from a small central office in London, and we had to sort everything out from recruiting volunteers to arranging storage for all of the books we had collected until shipping them out.’ The volunteers were supplied with a comprehensive sorting guide by READ, and the books were sorted and matched to the Tanzanian syllabus. The charity only collects books from the core subjects of English,
maths, science and geography. The others, such as those covering religion or history, are sold online to generate much-needed funding. Any unsold books are sent for recycling, which generates further funding. At the end of the academic year, a container full of the Kent books was shipped to Dar es Salaam where it was met by the six volunteers who then travelled with the books. Accompanied by local education officials, they then distributed the books to the schools within the region. During their time in Tanzania, the volunteers visited Kigoma, a remote area in the western part of the country, where the additional £500 raised was used to refurbish a school library. There is no doubt that the efforts of the Kent volunteers have made an immense difference to schools in what is one of the poorest nations in the world, where 90% of the population lives on less that just £1.50 per day. It is not surprising that against this background, teachers often lack the resources to teach, with one book commonly shared between 15 or 20 pupils. In return, the volunteers themselves have benefitted greatly. As Louise said: ‘This past year, which culminated in the six weeks in Tanzania, has been the most worthwhile thing I have ever done. It has been a rewarding and exciting time.’
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Autumn 2009
A strong international impact The international reputation and impact of the University was once again recognised by The Sunday Times University Guide. The 2009 profile of the University reports that Kent has seen ‘a 19% rise in applications this year, with candidates keen to embark on courses designed to equip them with the skills needed for work, as well as to broaden their horizons’. As an example of such an opportunity, the Guide refers to the University’s new four-year law degree, with the third year spent at Southwest University of Politics and Law in Chongqing, China. It also refers to the 400 UoK students a year who now take part in foreign exchanges with more than 100 partner institutions in Europe through the Erasmus programme. The University was previously described by the Guide as one that ‘can claim to be Britain’s only international university’. This was partly due to the Brussels campus (where more than 200 postgraduate students from over 50 countries are currently enrolled), as well as a commitment to improving international study partnerships, research collaborations, enterprise and work placement opportunities, and general student and staff mobility with universities around the world. Since then, the University has launched the University of Kent at Paris and has developed an enviable range of enterprise and academic programmes that has enabled UK students to work or study in many countries throughout the EU, as well as in countries ranging from Argentina to the United States of America. It has also developed a number of generous scholarships for international students, with 120 countries, including every EU member state, now represented at the University.
Medway campus secures new HEFCE investment The University is to receive 250 additional student places for 2010 entry as a result of increased funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The increase is part of the government drive to raise skills levels and increase participation in higher education in several key areas across the country. HEFCE selected nine centres of education across the United Kingdom for additional investment and the Medway campus is receiving by far the largest allocation of the new places on offer. Canterbury Christ Church University, one of the two other partner universities based at the Medway campus, has received a further 200 places. The University will continue to focus on tackling the chronic skills shortage in the region and raising aspirations across all sectors of the community, especially among school leavers. Medway is also attracting increasing numbers of outstanding students from other parts of the country, and from Europe and further afield.
“The Medway campus will receive by far the largest allocation of the new places on offer”
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Autumn 2009
Study aims to help reduce ‘deer problem’ in Britain A new study led by Professor Douglas MacMillan at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) aims to help reduce the widely reported ‘deer problem’ in Great Britain. In many parts of Great Britain, deer populations are increasing and as a consequence so are the financial, environmental and social costs associated with them. These include serious road traffic accidents and damage to agricultural and forestry crops. The economic cost from deer-related road traffic accidents in England alone, due to injury, death, and damage, is estimated to be around £10.5 million per annum. Professor MacMillan’s study, funded by the UK Rural Land Use and Economy Programme and conducted by an academic team from the Forestry Commission and DICE, proposed four options to redress the situation including direct intervention by the public sector in deer management across both public and private lands. This would include compulsory culling, fencing and other methods.
“The economic cost from deer-related road traffic accidents in England alone… is estimated to be around £10.5 million per annum”
Launch of Hong Kong Alumni Association The launch of the University Alumni (Hong Kong) Association was officially celebrated at the 2009 Hong Kong Alumni Reception held in October. The Association will enable more events and networking opportunities to take place for all alumni in Hong Kong. There are currently 138 students from Hong Kong studying at Kent, confirming the region’s importance to the University as part of its Internationalisation Strategy. The Association is the official University of Kent alumni group in Hong Kong, and has established an Executive Committee which includes President Eddy Fong, Treasurer Kennedy Wong and Secretary Felix Woo, as well as Eric Lee, Keith Li and Mary Chong. It also gives alumni the chance to support the University of Kent via the Hong Kong Alumni Scholarship Fund. The Fund was initially established in 2005 by Eddy Fong and Kennedy Wong in celebration of the University’s 40th anniversary and their generosity over the past four years has already enabled a number of talented students from Hong Kong and mainland China the chance to study at Kent.
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Autumn 2009
University lecturer shortlisted for Law Teacher of the Year Award Senior Lecturer Nick Jackson from the Kent Law School, has been shortlisted for the Law Teacher of the Year Award 2010. Nick Jackson is one of six shortlisted candidates, with the winner due to be announced at a ceremony in 2010. He has been heavily involved in the development of electronic learning resources in the Law School, receiving a National Teaching Fellowship in 2002 in recognition of this work. He is Convener of the undergraduate Property Law modules.
The Caine Prize at Kent The Caine Prize for African Writing, often referred to as ‘the African Booker’, celebrated its tenth anniversary with a public showcase at the University of Kent on Tuesday 13 October. The event gave its audience with a unique opportunity to engage with authors Brian Chikwava, winner 2004; Chika Unigwe, shortlisted 2004; and Binyavanga Wainaina, winner 2002. It was chaired by Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah, author of Booker Prize-shortlisted novel Paradise and Professor of Postcolonial Literature at the University’s highly rated School of English.
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“The Caine Prize celebrated its tenth anniversary with a public showcase at the University of Kent”
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Autumn 2009
Graduate employment boost The University has been jointly awarded £311,563 under the government’s Economic Challenge Investment Fund. As part of a partnership led by Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent will be working with the Universities of Greenwich and the Creative Arts to address immediate economic challenges through rapid placement of graduates with businesses in Kent and Medway. Funding will also go towards establishing a framework for a graduate consultancy accessible to local firms, thereby retaining higher level skills within the local economy. The four universities are seeking to strengthen the links between graduates and local businesses as part of the Kent Universities for Business and Enterprise (KUBE) partnership.
Vice-Chancellor supports creative graduates Chelsea Hughes, who graduated from Kent with a first class BA Honours in Fine Art, became the first recipient of the Vice-Chancellor’s annual creative purchase. Chelsea’s work, titled Light Scorched, will be in the Vice-Chancellor’s Office for a year, before being put on display in a permanent location on either the Canterbury or Medway campus. Having had exhibitions in Canterbury, she is now concentrating on building her portfolio of work in her new studio in Dover and plans to continue studying, starting a Master’s degree in the near future.
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Autumn 2009
Cross-Channel project improves patient recovery A cross-Channel research project co-led by Professor Fritz Mühlschlegel at the School of Biosciences, has resulted in improved recovery and shorter hospital stays for many patients in the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Trust. East Kent Hospitals University NHS Trust is one of the largest hospital trusts in England, with five hospitals and several outpatient facilities across East Kent and Medway. As a result of the research conducted by Professor Mühlschlegel (below) and Professor Daniel Poulain of Université Lille 2, it now has a simple, reliable, diagnostic test to differentiate pathogenic fungi, many of which can cause life-threatening invasive infections. This means that clinicians can choose an appropriate anti-fungal compound, leading to quicker recovery and shorter hospital stays for patients. The project, which was funded by Interreg IIIA, a European Union programme, was designed to foster cross-border co-operation.
Research shows drink spiking rumours displace fear about losing control from alcohol According to research led by the University of Kent and reported in the latest issue of The British Journal of Criminology, the perception of a drink spiking threat has become so pervasive that students think it is a more important factor in sexual assault than being drunk, taking drugs or walking alone at night. The fear has also created a market for products designed to prevent drink spiking or reveal the presence of hypnotic drugs. The research team, led by Dr Adam Burgess from the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, set out to investigate why there was such a pervasive belief when systematic police investigations have found no evidence that drink spiking is commonly implicated in sexual assaults. The researchers surveyed and interviewed students in three UK locations and one in the USA about the threat. They discovered that female students regularly judged certain ‘bad-night-out episodes’ (loss of memory, blackouts, ill feeling and dizziness) as likely to be related to tampering of drinks rather than the quantity of alcohol consumed.
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Autumn 2009
Nikon Small World award for biologist A microscopic image photographed by Dr Dan Mulvihill from the School of Biosciences has been awarded an Image of Distinction in the 2009 Nikon International Small World Competition. The Nikon International Small World Competition began in 1974 as a means to recognise and applaud the efforts of those involved with photography through the microscope. Dr Mulvihill’s award-winning image captured the distribution of cytoskeletons (responsible for cell movement) in fission yeast during cell division. Dr Mulvihill is a member of the Kent Fungal Group based in the School of Biosciences. The Group comprises laboratories which not only devise new therapies for fungal infections, but also use these organisms to study how complex processes work in the simple single cell yeast.
Million-Pound Donors Report reveals UK philanthropy to be robust New research from the University’s Centre for the Study of Philanthropy, Humanitarianism and Social Justice (CPHSJ) has revealed that UK philanthropy and the desire of wealthy donors to sustain their giving have remained surprisingly robust despite the economic situation. The research, which was commissioned by Coutts & Co for its second annual Coutts Million-Pound Donors Report, also reveals that, unlike the first year this research was undertaken (2006-07), more ‘million-pound donations’ are being given directly to front-line charities rather than being ‘banked’ in charitable foundations for distribution at a later date. Consequently, the amount of money that ‘million-pound donors’ have made available for spending directly on charitable recipients has actually increased from £705 million in 2006/07 to £808 million in 2007/08 – an increase of over £100 million.
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Faculty update 2009 The Faculty of Humanities 2009 was a strong year for the Faculty. The RAE results for the schools in the Faculty were excellent for our reputation and financial strength. The crowning achievement was History’s ranking of second nationally, closely followed by French, ranked seventh, while our traditionally strong Schools of English and Arts also reinforced their positions with very high GPA scores. These results were due in no small measure to the influx of outstanding new staff, both senior and early career, over the past four or five years, in the wake of very substantial growth in our student recruitment. 2009 has continued this trend, with record undergraduate recruitment in terms of qualifications as well as numbers, and a further round of staff appointments of the very highest calibre. The Faculty has also been investing in research in other ways, setting up a new fund to pump-prime collaborative and interdisciplinary research. This has led to exciting new initiatives such as the setting up of a cross-faculty Centre for Film in the Humanities. There has been a step-change in the value of external research funding applications in the last two years (to circa £8 million per annum, from £2-3 million pa), and 2009 was a strong year for the Faculty in terms of major new awards, the highlight being Professor Jeremy Carrette’s award of over £500,000 under the AHRC’s Religion and Society scheme for a project on religious non-governmental organisations and the United Nations in New York and Geneva.
In 2009, the Faculty launched a major new initiative, University of Kent in Paris, whereby one year Master’s students have the opportunity to combine study at Canterbury with a term in Paris. The first cohort of ten students will be resident in Paris for a term from January 2010, taught by the Faculty’s staff in the congenial surroundings of Reid Hall, owned by Columbia University. A number of new taught MA programmes, both at Canterbury and Paris, will start in 2010, part of a major push by the Faculty to accelerate recent growth in graduate student recruitment. Undergraduate satisfaction as measured by the National Student Survey remains high, with Archaeology a particular highlight in 2009 with its first place nationally. The School of Architecture has been leading the way on the Faculty’s new student experience initiative to create opportunities for all our students to go on a short study trip to continental Europe, taking 150 first-year students on a week-long study trip to Barcelona during the first term. The School of Arts is looking forward to moving into its purpose-built new building at the turn of the year, which will bring the School together under one roof for the first time and provide outstanding facilities for staff and students. The School of Arts is also poised to expand significantly the Faculty’s presence at the Medway campus with new programmes in design. Dr Karl Leydecker Dean
The Faculty was also successful in its bid to the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s new Block Grant Partnership Scheme for supporting research students, so that over the next five years research students in the Faculty will receive close to £1 million in fees and maintenance support from the AHRC.
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Faculty update 2009
Faculty of Sciences This has been another successful year for the Faculty of Sciences. Our major goals in the Faculty Plan were to build on our research strengths, to expand our portfolio of Master’s programmes and to increase our strategic partnerships with overseas universities. In addition, we pledged to strengthen our enterprise activities and continue to promote our outreach activities to schools and the general public. We have made significant progress in all these areas. The 2008 RAE results confirmed our exceptional strengths in materials science and in statistics, both areas being ranked in the top ten of their disciplines nationwide. We are also expanding activities in other areas where Kent has an international research reputation. In the last 12 months, we have recruited 17 academics with research strengths in areas as diverse as magnetic nanoparticles, human-computer interactions, non-linear functional analyses and virus vaccine development. We appreciate that high-quality research often involves the integration of interdisciplinary teams: this thinking underlies our launch of the Centre for Molecular Processing, which brings together biologists, engineers, mathematicians, chemists and information technologists to tackle the emerging science of synthetic biology. Postgraduate research students have long been a significant cohort in the Faculty, but the provision of taught Master’s programmes has now developed into a significant component of our postgraduate portfolio. Some Schools have delivered strong Master’s provision for many years, but last year saw a significant increase in provision of new Masters courses aimed at the UK and overseas market. MSc course titles such as Advanced Software Development; Computer Security; Computing and Entrepreneurship; Mathematics and its Applications; and Finance, Investment and Risk now appear in our Prospectus. Furthermore, programmes such as Infection Control; Forensic Imaging; and Wireless Communications and Signal Processing
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are in the planning stage. Worth special mention is the EuroMasters MSc in Physics, a new two-year programme involving the SEPnet consortium of six South-East Universities which offers a combination of taught modules within Physics (our astrophysicists and condensed matter physicists are heavily involved) along with an extended research project in any of the partner institutes. We have continued to expand our collaborative agreements with a number of institutions this year. For example, we have signed exchange agreements with the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Naresuan University (Thailand) and the National BIOTECH Institute in Bangkok. We also held our first joint research symposium with Philipps Universität Marburg, where staff and students spent two intriguing days on the Canterbury campus discussing the complexities of the cell biology of yeasts and the molecular biology of infectious diseases. We have established an excellent outreach programme of events that regional schools can readily access, and in doing so expose the next generation to a wide range of innovative scientific topics and career options. Regular events such as the FirstLego® League, the Christmas Science Lectures, Café Scientifique and the Science Extravaganza are now embedded in the annual cycle. Our students have enthusiastically embraced the Schools Ambassador scheme and spend time with pupils either in the classroom or on campus. More recently, the Faculty has taken over organisation of the Inaugural lecture series, where new professors give a public lecture. The first of these involved Professor Michael Smith who spoke about ‘The Origin of Stars’ and then led a public debate about ‘Man on the Moon: Past, Present & Future’. Finally, at the forefront of our communication strategy is our monthly bulletin Sciences@Kent, which has proven to be extremely popular and is available online at www.kent.ac.uk/stms/newsletters/index.html Professor Peter Jeffries Dean
Annual Review
Faculty update 2009
Faculty of Social Sciences Most of this year’s highlights were about research and research funding, but the Centre for Journalism’s newly launched undergraduate course also made the headlines by winning a prestigious teaching scholarship supported by Sky News, in its first year of teaching. Excellent performance in the Research Assessment Exercise, which had been announced just before Christmas, lifted spirits at the start of the year. Law and Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR) were the superstars, both achieving rankings in the top half-dozen nationally. Economics also performed very well and the Business School, Politics and International Relations and Psychology all achieved substantial improvements in their national rankings. The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) also performed very well as a new entrant, scoring a middle ranking in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences, a unit of assessment dominated by hard science and engineering. These improved results translated into substantial amounts of cash in the form of increased allocations of HEFCE Research funding (QR). The total annual QR allocation for the Schools in the Faculty increased by about £1.4 million. Psychology and the Business School were the biggest winners, each with increases of over £400,000; Politics and International Relations also won their first allocation of QR of £237,000. Unfortunately there were also QR losers, among them SSPSSR, whose top ranking did not protect them from losing some hundreds of thousands of pounds, although they still lead the Faculty, receiving over £1.3 million annually.
The challenge of the coming years will be to invest QR and other income in a way that will deliver a sustainable research base supported by a range of funding streams. Increasing our external research grant income is crucial in this endeavour. The year to August showed a 50% rise in grants won to a total of £7.7 million across the Faculty. The two best performances were Psychology, who topped £1 million in grants awarded for the first time, and the School of Anthropology and Conservation who topped £2 million. Philanthropic donations are increasingly important and this year saw the launch of the DICE Scholarship Appeal which aims to provide a number of full-fee scholarships for overseas students. The Law School has launched a scholarship fund and are preparing to launch an appeal to support the award-winning Law Clinic, through which students provide legal services to people who could not otherwise afford them. The Centre for Journalism was singled out by Sky News to host the Bob Friend Memorial Scholarship, which commemorates the original face of Sky News. An important part of the Scholarship is that the winner has a placement at Sky News, an incredible forcing ground for talent, as Alan McGuinness, the first winner, discovered this summer. Several colleagues were honoured for their contributions to their subject. Julia Twigg, Larry Ray, Richard Crisp and John Mingers were elected to the Academy of Social Sciences. Rob Fraser was made a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society. Dominic Abrams won the 2009 British Psychological Society President’s Award for exceptional contributions to psychological research. An article by Paddy Ireland has been identified as one of a dozen of the ‘most influential’ articles ever to have been published in the journal of the Society of Legal Scholars. Professor Andrew Derrington Dean
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Rising to the challenge of recession Kent graduate David Rowe hit the headlines this autumn when he took to London’s streets wearing a sandwich board to advertise himself as a potential employee. David’s innovative approach at a time of a global economic turmoil not only gained him extensive media coverage but also earned him a number of job interviews.
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David’s unusual approach may not be quite in line with the advice given by the University’s career service, however, like other Kent alumni David has had access to full careers support for up to three years after graduation. Recent Kent graduates are also offered the opportunity to benefit from the advice and support of alumni who are more established in their chosen careers through, for example, work shadowing or email advice. With a developing portfolio of different enterprise and entrepreneurial opportunities, the University is also building a growing enterprise culture among its students to help develop employable skills. Many courses incorporate project work and placements within companies and modules are offered on enterprise and entrepreneurship.
Kent graduates are also benefiting from the government’s Economic Challenge Investment Fund. In April, the University was jointly awarded £311,563 from the Higher Education Funding Council for England. As a result, it is now working with Canterbury Christ Church University and the Universities of Greenwich and the Creative Arts to address immediate economic challenges through rapid placement of graduates with businesses in Kent and Medway. As well as supporting its students, the University has a wider role both in helping the region’s economy out of recession and in shaping the post-recession landscape. According to Carole Barron, Kent’s Director of Innovation and Enterprise and a member of the Kent County Council’s Backing Kent Business Campaign group, Kent is uniquely
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Autumn 2009
placed to support to its local region. With its world-class research activities and initiatives such as ICE (Innovation, Creativity and Enterprise) – a new and ambitious innovation network – Kent connects regional, national and international businesses to the University and to each other.
“The University has a wider role in both helping the region’s economy out of recession and in shaping the post-recession landscape”
The £7 million new Canterbury Innovation Centre, funded by South East England Development Agency and built on the Canterbury campus by the East Kent Spatial Development Company, is also part of Kent’s strategy to encourage innovation and enterprise within the University. The Centre opened in November, with over a third of space already let to innovative local businesses. It is part of a drive to increase the level of high tech, innovative businesses in the region which will greatly benefit from access to the University’s considerable expertise. It is expected to create 2,000 jobs and support 800 new businesses in the future. In addition to new business, the Centre also houses The Bulb, a dedicated space to support graduates with innovative business ideas and projects by providing start-up space, mentoring and advice clinics.
More than 50 businesses have registered with the ICE network following its launch in November when the guest speaker for the evening was Charles Leadbeater, a strategic adviser to corporations and governments. ICE members include Pfizer Ltd (Sandwich), Curve 21 Ltd (Brighton) and Kent Science Park (Sittingbourne).
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Annual Review
New music building 2009
When did the idea of a music building first come up?
Director of Music, Susan Wanless, has been at Kent for 22 years. Here she looks back at her early days and tells us how her dream of a dedicated music building is finally coming true. Can you remember what attracted you to Kent? It is just a great job. As the Director of Music at Kent you are an animateur, organising anything musical that you think will work – everything with the word ‘music’ on it comes my way! As there is no academic music department on the Canterbury campus, everyone who wants to make music can do so – that is the ethos behind what we do here. We encourage all students, staff and the local community to get involved in a whole range of music activities.
What were your priorities when you first arrived? There wasn’t any one big thing I wanted to change, I just wanted to get lots more people on campus making music and develop core areas such as the chorus and the orchestra.
What were the facilities like? To be honest, grim. I am always amazed that we are able to make such fantastic music and produce all these wonderful concerts when the facilities we have are so awful! All our alumni will remember the gruesome practice rooms in the bowels of the colleges, invariably situated next to the laundry or the kitchen, and the awful acoustics in Eliot hall.
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Well, it was always a dream. As the music on campus has developed, we have outgrown our ad hoc facilities. For example, one of the rooms we use for rehearsals is called the OTE (Old Telephone Exchange – annoyingly next to the new telephone exchange!); when I first arrived the University Chorus rehearsed in there, now we can barely fit the University Chamber Choir in. In November 2008 Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Keith Mander and I decided to launch a fundraising campaign at a music lecture and dinner on campus. One of our guests was Jonathan Monckton, the chairman of the trustees of the ColyerFergusson Charitable Trust. On our way to the dinner he asked me what we were hoping to achieve and I told him about our hopes for a dedicated music building. He didn’t flinch when I told him how much money we needed and asked me to send him details of our plans. Professor Mander and I submitted an application to the Trust, which considered the application in great detail. The Trustees then met representatives of the University and, having been reassured that Kent was an organisation that had the capacity to deliver the proposal to an agreed schedule, subsequently sent us a letter suggesting a gift of £4.5 million. We will reach our final target for the building with Sir James ColyerFergusson’s bequest, matched funding from the Higher Education Funding Council and other donations.
That sounds remarkably simple. It was a result of a relationship with the Colyer-Fergusson Charitable Trust that began many years ago. I first met Sir James in 1996 when he was kind enough to give us an endowment to support the musical activities at the University. Sir James was a wonderfully kind and gentle man who took great personal interest in our music making and attended many of our concerts. When sadly he died in 2004 we learnt that he had
bequeathed to the University one-sixth of the residue of his estate, with a specific request that it should be used to support music.
What happened next? Plans for the new building have moved along at an incredible rate. With the very generous donation from the Colyer-Fergusson Charitable Trust, matched funding from HEFCE and a contribution from the University we managed to secure (between November 2008 and February 2009) the funding needed to construct the building. We then had to appoint a design team. From 81 applications we made a shortlist of five, and have selected Tim Ronalds Architects to lead the project. It is a firm that we feel we can work well with; it has a good track record of working on similar buildings, including the acclaimed Watford Music Centre in Hertfordshire, which gives us all great confidence.
What stage is the project at now? We are now at the beginning of a consultation period when we will talk to as many stakeholders as we can, and there is the planning process to go through. We hope that building work will begin on site in November 2010.
How will the new building look? We owe it to the Colyer-Fergusson Charitable Trust to make it as wonderful as we can. (The building will be named after Sir James ColyerFergusson.) We want the building to be a gateway to the University, to be an iconic building that will draw people in, even those who may not have thought of making music or attending concerts before. But practically, it has to be very flexible; the hall needs to be used for lots of different types of performance, from solo players, bands, through to concerts with the Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Ultimately, I am absolutely clear in my mind that the single most important thing the building must have is superb acoustics.
Annual Review
New music building 2009
In your quiet moments do you have to pinch yourself to be sure this is really happening? There aren’t many quiet moments these days – but yes, I still can’t quite believe this is all happening! This is one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me and I can’t take the grin off my face. It is a huge responsibility, thrilling but also daunting. As a musician, I am used to doing performances – all that is left afterwards is the memory of the concert – nothing concrete, but this building will be concrete (and perhaps brick, glass and wood!) and it will be there for a very long time. I am on a very steep learning curve but everyone in our Estates Department has been so helpful and I am beginning to get my head round all the technical terms. Looking at the initial plans and designs is so exciting.
What else needs to be done? Although the funds raised to date will allow us to construct the building, we are still looking for funds to help us equip the building. The new building will require pianos, keyboards, a harpsichord and audio equipment, plus things like instrumental storage racks, plasma screens, noticeboards, orchestral seating and music stands. We also hope to be able to include listening and social spaces too, for the students to chill out. It’s a daunting list, but we have already received some donations and pledges towards these items, and I hope lots of our musical friends and supporters, past and present, will want to contribute. We owe it to Sir James and all the future generations of students, staff and the local community at Kent to make this building the most fantastic place to make music of every sort.
How difficult is it to wait? Of course, I’m very impatient and want it all to happen now, but we must take our time over this project to get everything right. It will be amazing to watch the building go up and I can’t wait to walk though its door and play the very first musical note in there!
For details of how you can help with this project or just to find out more information, please contact Susan Wanless at s.j.wanless@kent.ac.uk or on 01227 823305.
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Annual Review
42 University of Kent
Annual Review
Institutional Plan for 2009-12 The period of the last Plan – 2006-09 – saw an increasingly competitive period in the history of universities in the UK, and indeed the global higher education system. It was also one of the most successful periods in the University’s recent history, during which the University attracted increasing numbers of good students, achieved a strong performance in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, won the 2007 Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Further and Higher Education, and opened a new College – the first in 35 years specifically for postgraduate students, and maintained its sound financial position with annual surpluses. All this establishes Kent firmly as one of the UK’s leading universities. This year has seen an increasingly buoyant and confident University of Kent operating in an economic climate that is increasingly volatile and depressed – perhaps even in crisis. The University’s Plan for 2009-12 maintains its commitment to quality (whether in teaching and learning, in research or in our wider partnerships). It also aims to balance the pragmatic reality of needing to generate sufficient income to sustain the University’s long-term future with an ambition to continue the outstanding successes of recent years. It aims to steer a careful course between the dangers and the opportunities, while preparing the University for the return of more stable, and perhaps leaner, economic times. The Plan is based around six key messages: • a leading UK university Based in Canterbury, Medway and Brussels, the University of Kent is a leading UK university that makes a major economic, social, and cultural contribution: by providing excellent opportunities in higher education for the most able students, regardless of social and educational disadvantage, by undertaking innovative world-leading research, and by leading innovation, enterprise and creative activities • making a strong international impact The University has a strong international impact based on its external networks and partnerships with leading universities in Europe and around the world
• offering an inspiring student experience that prepares students for the future We offer an inspiring student experience that prepares students for the future, based on excellent research-led teaching in a lively, stimulating and effective learning community, and supported by a broad range of extracurricular opportunities • producing innovative world-leading research Our academic staff produce innovative world-leading research, forging new knowledge and creating change • enabling and valuing innovation, enterprise and creativity We promote and value innovation, enterprise and creativity in all areas of our activity • while operating in an effective, efficient, sustainable and professional manner We operate in an effective, efficient, sustainable and professional manner, based on partnerships between staff and students in academic schools, staff in professional service departments and the Kent Union. Finally, the University’s Plan for 2009-12 reaffirms the University’s commitment to equality and diversity, to maintaining a healthy and safe environment for its staff and students, and reducing further its carbon footprint. The complete Plan, including 31 institutional objectives, can be found at www.kent.ac.uk/about/plan/index.html
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Annual Review
Books 2009: a selection
The American West: Competing Visions (Edinburgh University Press) Dr John Wills and Dr Karen R Jones, School of History The American West used to be a story of gunfights, glory, wagon trails, and linear progress. Historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner and Hollywood movies such as Stagecoach and Shane cast the trans-Mississippi region as a frontier of epic proportions where ‘savagery’ met ‘civilisation’ and boys became men. During the late 1980s, this old way of seeing the West came under heavy fire. Scholars such as Patricia Nelson Limerick and Richard White forged a fresh story of the region, a new vision of the West, based around the conquest of peoples and landscapes. The American West: Competing Visions explores the bipolar world of Turner’s old West and Limerick’s new West and reveals the values and ambiguities associated with both historical traditions. Sections on Lewis and Clark, the frontier and the cowboy sit alongside work on Indian genocide and women’s trail diaries. Images of the region as seen through the arcade western, Hollywood film and Disney theme parks confirm the West as a symbolic and contested landscape.
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The Quality of Freedom: Khodorkovsky, Putin and the Yukos Affair (OUP) Professor Richard Sakwa, School of Politics and International Relations Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of the Yukos oil company, was arrested on 25 October 2003. This event proved a turning point for post-Communist Russia and for Vladimir Putin’s presidency. By that time, Khodorkovsky had become one of the world’s richest and most powerful men, while Yukos had been transformed into a vertically-integrated oil company that was set to go global. On all counts, this looked like a success story for Russia, but it was precisely at this moment that the authorities struck, and Khodorkovsky was later sentenced to eight years in jail. This book explains why all of this occurred. It provides some theoretical discussion as well as detailed analysis of the rise and fall of Yukos, and with it the development of the Russian oil industry. It also examines the relationship between the state and big business during Russia’s traumatic shift from the Soviet-planned economy to the market system, as well as Russia’s emergence as an ‘energy superpower’. The attack on Khodorkovsky had far-reaching political and economic consequences but it also raised fundamental questions about the quality of freedom in contemporary Russia, as well as in the world at large.
The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ (Blackwell) Professor Kenneth Westphal (ed), School of European Culture and Languages This groundbreaking collective commentary on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, written by a select group of leading international scholars, peels back the layers of Hegel’s great work to reveal new insights into one of the most challenging works in the history of western philosophy. Providing a groundbreaking collective commentary, by an international group of leading philosophical scholars, Blackwell’s Guide to Hegel’s ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ transforms and expands our understanding and appreciation of one of the most challenging works in Western philosophy.
Annual Review
Books 2009: a selection
Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives (Penguin) Brian Dillon, School of English Tormented Hope is a book about mind and body, fear and hope, illness and imagination. It explores, in the stories of nine individuals, the relationship between mind and body as it is mediated by the experience, or simply the terror, of being ill. In an intimate investigation of those nine lives, it shows how the mind can make a prison of the body, by distorting our sense of ourselves as physical beings. Brian Dillon, whose brilliant debut In the Dark Room established him as an uncommonly intelligent and fluent explorer of the realm where ideas and emotions overlap, looks at nine prominent hypochondriacs – James Boswell, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Daniel Paul Schreber, Alice James, Marcel Proust, Glenn Gould and Andy Warhol – and what their lives tell us about the way the mind works with, and against, the body. His findings are stimulating and surprising, and the stories he tells are often moving, sometimes hilarious, and always gripping. Tormented Hope has been shortlisted for the first Wellcome Trust Book Prize for the year’s best book related to medicine.
Cold Earth (Granta) Dr Sarah Moss, School of English A group of six people travel to a remote corner of Greenland to take part in an archaeological dig to uncover a Norse settlement and burial. Things soon start to go wrong when Nina sees marauding Greenlanders and hears people talking and moving around at night. The others are torn between believing her and thinking she’s mad. But Nina’s visions are the least of their worries.
It soon becomes clear that an epidemic involving a killer virus is cutting swathes across the world. The group is isolated from the outside world and living in tents on dried rations and has little idea of how the virus is progressing – especially when their limited internet access ceases to work. This is a ‘Lord of the Flies’ scenario played out with adults who are ill-assorted in the first place and have their own individual reasons for being there. Tensions develop and it soon becomes clear that the book is made up of final letters from each of the group as they fear they will not be rescued as planned by plane at the end of their six weeks.
Domestic Violence Law Reform and Women’s Experience in Court: The Implementation of Feminist Reforms in Civil Proceedings (Cambria Press) Professor Rosemary Hunter, Kent Law School Domestic Violence Law Reform and Women’s Experience in Court investigates the ways in which women’s experiences of domestic violence are heard and understood in civil court settings, and examines women’s experiences of telling
their stories (or at least attempting to do so) in those settings. The study argues that procedure crucially shapes women’s experience of the legal process, and is neglected by feminists at their peril.
The Italian Resistance: Fascists, Guerrillas and the Allies (Pluto Press) Dr Tom Behan, School of European Culture and Languages One of the enduring myths about the second world war is that only the Allies liberated occupied Europe. Many countries had antifascist Resistance movements. Italy’s was one of the biggest and most politically radical, yet it remains relatively unknown outside its homeland. Within Italy, many monuments and street names commemorate the actions of the partisans – a movement from below that grew as Mussolini’s dictatorship unravelled. Led by radical left forces, the Resistance trod a thin line between fighting their enemies at home and maintaining an uneasy working relationship with the Allies. Tom Behan uses unpublished archival material and interviews with surviving partisans to tell an inspiring story of liberation.
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Annual Review
Books 2009: a selection
Introduction to Programming with Greenfoot: Object-Oriented Programming in Java with Games and Simulations, Prentice Hall Professor Michael Kölling, School of Computing This book is the next piece in the puzzle of the Greenfoot programming system, teaching Java programming in an interactive and engaging way that is technically relevant, pedagogically sound, and highly motivational for students. Using the Greenfoot environment, and an extensive collection of compelling example projects, students are given a unique, graphical framework in which to learn programming. The Greenfoot software, a development environment designed to teach programming to children at secondary school age, has been available since 2006, and has been in use by dozens of schools and universities. More teaching material for use with this environment was the most requested additional resource.
Style and Function in Roman Decoration: Living with Objects and Interiors (Ashgate)
The Demotic Voice in Contemporary British Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan)
Dr Ellen Swift, School of European Culture and Languages
Dr Jeremy Scott, English Language Unit
This book puts forward a new interpretation of Roman decorative art, focusing on the function of decoration in the social context. It examines the three principal areas of social display and conspicuous consumption in the Roman world – social space, entertainment, and dress – and discusses the significance of the decoration of objects and interiors within these contexts, drawing examples from both Rome and its environs, and the western provinces, from the early Imperial period to Late Antiquity. Focusing on specific examples, including mosaics and other interior décor, silver plate, glass and pottery vessels, and jewellery and other dress accessories, Swift demonstrates the importance of decoration in creating and maintaining social networks and identities and fostering appropriate social behaviour, and its role in perpetuating social convention and social norms. It is argued that our understanding of stylistic change and the relationship between this and the wider social context in the art of the Roman period is greatly enhanced by an initial focus on the particular social relationships fostered by decorated objects and spaces. The book demonstrates that an examination of so-called ‘minor art’ is fundamental in any understanding of the relationship between art and its social context, and aims to reinvigorate debate on the value of decoration and ornament in the Roman period and beyond.
Contemporary British fiction often features demotic narrative voices taken from ‘everyday’ contexts, using regional or national dialects. This writing aims in part to narrow the gap between the agencies of author and character so that both speak on the same plane, and engages with significant issues of regional, national and cultural identity in modern Britain. This book focuses on the works of James Kelman, Alan Warner, Graham Swift, Will Self, Martin Amis, Niall Griffiths and Anne Donovan (amongst others) and tries to assess the extent to which their narrative techniques succeed or fail – for example, modes of notation for regional and national dialects, and ways of representing ‘internal’ voices as opposed to spoken ones. An essential underlying question is whether a character’s voice can ever be represented ‘uncontaminated’ by the author. Can the character be set free from its creator? The book draws upon the disciplines of stylistics and narratology for its theoretical apparatus, but the topic is also approached from a practical angle; in other words, from the point of view of issues which inform and affect the ‘hands-on’ work of crafting narrative fiction.
Developing Partnerships: Gender, Sexuality, and the Reformed World Bank (Minnesota University Press) Dr Kate Bedford, Kent Law School Developing Partnerships: Gender, Sexuality, and the Reformed World Bank delivers a nuanced critique of how the World Bank encourages gender norms through its policies, arguing that financial institutions are key players in the global enforcement of gender and family expectations. Developing Partnerships presents a detailed examination of gender and sexuality in the policies of the world’s largest and most influential development institution.
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Annual Review
Open Lectures 2009
Wednesday 13 May Concepts of holism in orthodox and alternative medicine Professor Michael Baum, Professor Emeritus of Surgery and Visiting Professor of Medical Humanities at University College London Wednesday 10 June Leonardo and the poetics of portraiture Professor Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor in the History of Art, Oxford University Thursday 18 June The right to the city Professor David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, City University of New York Friday 30 January Chancellor’s Lecture
Wednesday 4 March Open Lecture
Friday 2 October TS Elliot Memorial Lecture
The Channel Tunnel – reflections on a transport revolution Lord Adonis, Minister of State for Transport (pictured above)
The construction of Victorian railway tunnels and the Canterbury to Whitstable line tunnel Alan Auld, Chairman and Managing Director Alan Auld Associates
Unauthorised voices Marilyn Hacker, American poet, critic and reviewer
Wednesday 4 February Kent Cancer Trust Lecture
Friday 13 March KIASH Lecture
Wednesday 14 October Kent Law Society – Keith Tucker Memorial Lecture Fraud and economic crime – Cinderella shall go to the ball Mike Brown QPM, Commissioner of the Police for the City of London
Concepts of holism in orthodox and alternative medicine Professor Michael Baum, Professor Emeritus of Surgery and Visiting Professor of Medical Humanities, University College London
Disappearing Acts: obscure lives and precarious identities in twentieth-century literature Professor Michael Sheringham, Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature, All Souls College, Oxford
Wednesday 21 October
Friday 13 February Pfizer Lecture
Friday 27 March Tizard Lecture
The importance of a struggle Michael Mansfield QC
The discovery of new medicines: challenges for industry and academia Professor Sir Tom Blundell, FRS, William Dunn Professor of Biochemistry and Chair, School of Biological Sciences, University of Cambridge
President Kennedy’s legacy in intellectual disability: success and failures of reform in the USA Professor Steven M Eidelman, The University of Delaware, USA, The Robert Edelsohn Chair of Disabilities Studies
Friday 20 February Lord Mayor’s Lecture
Tuesday 31 March Woolf College Lecture
The crash and beyond Baron Freud, Shadow Minister for Welfare Reform
Energy security and climate change: what role for Europe? Lord Hannay of Chiswick
Wednesday 25 February (Darwin 200 celebration) Is human evolution over? Professor Steve Jones, Professor of Genetics, University College London
Tuesday 5 May
Friday 27 November Pfizer Lecture Tackling global grand challenges Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, FRS, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council Friday 4 December A life lived through pictures The Rt Hon The Viscountess Bridgeman, Founder and Chairman, The Bridgeman Art Library Ltd
Social work and child protection: what needs to change? Professor David Shemmings, Professor of Social Work and Deputy Head of SSPSSR at the University of Kent at Medway
University of Kent 47
Annual Review
Summary of financial performance for the year to 31 July 2009
Financial highlights for the year to 31 July 2009 • Operating surplus of £7.1m • Overseas fees up £2.2m (15%) as a result of strong recruitment of international students • Strong residences and catering income contributing £0.6m in excess of budget • Effective budgetary control on non-pay expenditure • Increase in Net Current Assets by £7.3m to £11.5m and high year-end cash and short-term deposit balances • Capital expenditure of £14.7m
Financial summary The University’s consolidated results for the years ended 31 July 2009 and 31 July 2008 can be summarised as follows:
Income Expenditure Transfer from Accumulated Income in Endowment Funds Surplus for the Year
2008/09 £000
2007/08 £000
158,893 (151,862)
145,345 (139,745)
78
92
7,109
5,692
Change %age 9.3 8.7
24.9
and enhance the student experience. This also exceeded the budgeted surplus of £3.0m and was largely as a result of strong student recruitment and positive research income growth, combined with continued effective budgetary control over expenditure.
Income Total income grew by 9.3% to £158.9m with an additional £10.0m fee income and just under £3.5m additional funding council grant income. Overall, it was an excellent year for recruitment, with continued growth in full-time undergraduates, particularly from overseas. The final year of variable fees brought in an additional £4.2m net income after costs associated with new bursaries. Income from research activities continued to grow with a 14.9% increase in income over last year and some strong margins being seen on a number of high value grants. Income from student residences fell by £0.8m in the year despite occupation levels within campus accommodation being at an all time high, but the prior year had been an exceptional year for conferences and this activity had been expected to fall back to lower levels. Other non-residential income fell which was possibly linked to the downturn in the economy. Returns on investments and cash balances were also below levels achieved in the prior year due to the prevailing low interest rates on bank deposits and the University’s move to a lower risk approach.
The results for the 2008/09 year were extremely pleasing and are evidence that the University is continuing to grow its income despite the prevailing difficult economic conditions. The retained surplus for the year of £7.1m (2007/08: £5.7m) represented 4.5% of the University’s turnover and exceeded the targets set within the University’s Financial Framework which is designed to ensure that sufficient cash is generated to fund its ambitious capital programme
Staff Costs rose by 8.8% in the year as a result of further investments into Faculties and Academic Schools as part of a strategy to reduce the administrative burden on academic and research staff, and from the full impact of the final stage of the 2006-09 national pay framework agreement.
Analysis of income 2008/09 (£000)
Analysis of income 2007/08 (£000)
Expenditure
Endowment and Investment Income 977
Endowment and Investment Income 1,264
Other Income 30,255
Research Grants and Contracts 14,976
Tuition Fees and Education Contracts 53,877
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Other Income 31,803
Funding Council Grants 58,808
Research Grants and Contracts 13,032
Tuition Fees and Education Contracts 43,921
Funding Council Grants 55,325
Annual Review
Summary of financial performance for the year to 31 July 2009
Other Operating Expenses increased by just £2.7m (6.3%) and included a £0.5m unrealised fall in the market value of the University’s current asset investments. Additional expenditure occurred in areas of growth for example, in the School of Pharmacy and the School of Arts, and as a result of increased student numbers at franchised colleges; however all departments were asked to make savings against existing budgets and where not achieved through growing income, these were met by restricting non-pay expenditure. Research non-pay costs were higher but this was mainly related to the increased research activity and residences and catering costs were tightly controlled despite an increase in these activities. An additional £1.3m was paid to students in the form of bursaries for those students paying higher variable fees, as the third year of students paying higher fees entered the University. Depreciation charged in the year increased by £2.0m partly due to the commencement of a rolling ten-year refurbishment cycle of residential accommodation which led to a detailed review of the remaining useful economic lives of previous refurbishment and an additional charge of £1.6m.
Balance sheet and cash flow The 2008/09 balance sheet has strengthened over the year with net current assets increasing by £7.3m to £11.5m and a current asset ratio of 1.38. The University’s cash position at the end of the year remained strong with total cash, short-term deposits and current asset investments amounting to £28.9m (2007/08 £18.8m). The market value of endowments and current asset investments fell by a combined £1.0m as a result of worsening conditions in the global economy.
Analysis of expenditure 2008/09 (£000)
Long-term bank loan debt fell by £2.1m in the year with gearing levels now reduced to 37% as a percentage of income.
Capital projects Capital expenditure amounted to £14.7m in the year, of which £4.0m was spent on constructing a new building for the School of Arts, which is due to be completed in December 2009 at a total cost of £8.9m. Other major developments in Canterbury included the completion of new academic facilities within the University’s new college, Woolf College, providing a 496-seat lecture theatre and seminar rooms, together with multi-functional exhibition space and a small catering outlet. Work also continued on the construction of a new Sports Pavilion at a cost in the year of £2.2m. Further investment was made in improving and updating facilities with £3.0m spent on refurbishments of residential accommodation and academic-related space and the modernisation of catering outlets and other social spaces.
Statement on behalf of the University’s Council The above summary provides an overview of the University’s financial performance during the 2008/09 financial and academic year. It is consistent with the information incorporated in the University’s audited Financial Statements for the year to 31 July 2009 and largely comprises information detailed in the Operating and Financial Review contained within these statements. Full details of the University’s financial results, performance and year-end position can be found in the University of Kent Financial Statements for the Year to 31 July 2009, which can be found on the University’s web site or by writing to the Secretary of the Council, The University of Kent, The Registry, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NZ.
Analysis of expenditure 2007/08 (£000)
Interest Payable 4,093
Interest Payable 4,158
Depreciation 10,827
Other Operating Expenses 46,154
Exceptional Restructuring Costs 820
Depreciation 8,817
Staff Costs 89,968
Other Operating Expenses 43,421
Staff Costs 82,704
Exceptional Restructuring Costs 645
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Annual Review
Awards, appointments, promotions and deaths 2009
Awards Professor Julia Goodfellow, Vice-Chancellor: Professor Julia Goodfellow received an honorary degree (Doctor of Science, honoris causa) from the University of Manchester at a ceremony held on 14 October 2009. Professor Goodfellow also received an honorary degree (Doctor of Science, honoris causa) from the University of London at its Foundation Day on Wednesday 25 November 2009. Professor Julia Twigg, Professor Richard Crisp, Professor John Mingers and Professor Larry Ray have been elected members of the Academy of Social Sciences. The first BJS Prize, a biennial prize given to the author of an article published in The British Journal of Sociology, which in the opinion of the judges makes an outstanding contribution to increasing sociological knowledge, has been awarded to Clare Saunders for her paper ‘Double-edged swords? Collective identity and solidarity in the environment movement’ (BJS, Vol. 59, June 2008). Clare is now RCUK Fellow and Lecturer in Politics at Southampton University, but she was successively a research assistant, a PhD student and Research Associate in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR) from 2000-08. The prize-winning article derives from a chapter in her PhD thesis (Kent 2005). Professor Sarah Spurgeon, Head of the School of Engineering and Digital Arts was appointed as an ‘Engineering Ambassador’ for the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) from April 2009 to July 2011. As part of her new role, Professor Spurgeon will represent and promote the Academy’s work, policies and achievements in education and engineering to the media. Nick Jackson, Senior Lecturer in Law, is one of only six shortlisted candidates for the Law Teacher of the Year Award for 2010.
50 University of Kent
Professor Sally Fincher became the first British academic in 30 years to receive the SIGCSE (Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education) Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education. Dr Farzin Deravi, Reader in Information Engineering in the School of Engineering and Digital Arts was awarded the Fellowship of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET). Dr Kate Bradley won the Award for Excellence in Teaching Sociology, awarded by the British Sociological Association (BSA) and the Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics (C–SAP). Dr Bradley, who lectures in Sociology and Social History at the University’s Medway campus, was praised by judges for her use of web-based learning journals with first-year students on the BSc Social Sciences degree programme. Professor Crosbie Smith, Professor of History of Science, has been awarded a major international prize in the history of technology. The Society for the History of Technology, based in the United States, presented its Abbott Payson Usher Prize to Professor Smith and his co-author Dr Anne Scott, for their article ‘“Trust in Providence”: Building Confidence into the Cunard Line of Steamers’ published in the Society’s international journal Technology and Culture. Molly Mahood, Emeritus Professor of English Literature, jointly awarded the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize for English Literature for The Poet as Botanist. Professor Donna Landry received a Leverhulme Study Abroad Fellowship for 2009-10 for the Evliya Çelebi project. With Caroline Finkel, Gerald MacLean, Emir Mahir Basdog˘an, Leyla Neyzi, Ercihan Dilari,and the botanist Andy Byfield, she is planning the Evliya Celebi Ride and Way, a project of historical re-enactment, leading to the establishment of an UNESCO European cultural route, The Evliya Çelebi Way.
University Teaching Prize Award Winners 2009 Humanities Faculty Prize: Junko Theresa Mikuriya (History & Philosophy of Art), Dr Grant Pooke & Dr Diana Newall (History & Philosophy of Art ) and Dr Natalia Sobrevilla Perea (Hispanic Studies) Sciences Faculty Prize: Dr Peter Klappa (Biosciences) Postgraduate Supervision Prize: Professor Darren Griffin (Biosciences) and Dr Stefan Rossbach (Politics and International Relations)
Appointments Deputy Vice-Chancellor – Denise Everitt Professor Roger Vickerman – Dean of the University of Kent at Brussels Professor Joanne Conaghan – Head of Kent Law School Professor Douglas Macmillan – Head of the School of Anthropology and Conservation Nancy Gaffield – Master of Darwin and Woolf Colleges Jane Glew – College Master for Medway Dr Anthony Ward – Senior Master and Master of Keynes College
University of Kent Honorary Degrees 2009 Sir Cyril Chantler, Doctor of Science Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony, Doctor of Laws Professor Fred D’Aguiar, Doctor of Letters General Sir Richard Dannatt, Doctor of Civil Law Professor Reg Foakes, Doctor of Letters Dame Elizabeth Forgan, Doctor of Letters Sir Brandon Gough, Doctor of Civil Law Denis Linfoot OBE, Doctor of Civil Law Carolyn McCall OBE, Doctor of the University Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, Doctor of Laws Professor Carol Robinson, Doctor of Science
Annual Review
Awards, appointments, promotions and deaths 2009
Professor Carol Smart, Doctor of Laws
Promotion to Senior Lecturer
Dr Gabor Nagy, Kent Business School
Professor Christopher Stringer FRS, Doctor of Science
Fran Beaton, Unit for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching
Dr Grant Pooke, School of Arts (History & Philosophy of Art)
Dr Stefano Biagini, School of Physical Sciences
Dr Maria Scaparra, Kent Business School
Joan Wain, Doctor of the University Brett Warburton, Doctor of the University
Dr Timothy Bowman, School of History
Peter White MBE, Doctor of Letters
Dr Timothy Brittain-Catlin, School of Architecture
Dr Ellen Swift, School of European Culture and Languages (Classical and Archaeological Studies)
Professor Rick Trainor, Doctor of Civil Law
Promotions
Dr Ebrahim Soltani, Kent Business School
Dr Edward Cartwright, School of Economics
Promotion to Senior Research Fellow
The promotions listed below have been approved to take effect from 1 October 2009.
Dr Lorenzo Chiesa, School of European Culture and Languages (French)
Robin Darton, Personal Social Services Research Unit
Promotion to Chair
Dr David Corfield, School of European Culture and Languages (Philosophy)
Deaths
Dr Christopher Deacy, School of European Culture and Languages (Religious Studies)
David Edwards – 1926 to 2009 – the University’s first Buildings Officer with the title Surveyor and Deputy Registrar
Dr David Ayers, School of English Sally Fincher, School of Computing Dr Richard Griffiths, School of Anthropology and Conservation
Patricia Debney, School of English Dr Salvatore Di Falco, School of Economics
Dr Douglas MacMillan, School of Anthropology and Conservation Martin Ridout, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science Dr Mark Smales, School of Biosciences
Promotion to Reader Peter McGill, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (Tizard Centre) Dr Joachim Stoeber, School of Psychology Dr Charles Watters, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Professor Roger Vickerman
Dr Tania Dunning, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science
Sylvia Hughes – 1950 to 2009 – the first woman to hold the role of College Head Chef at the University – 24 years of service in all of the College kitchens
Dr Mark Howard, School of Biosciences
Dr Mike Presdee – 1944 to 2009 – Senior Lecturer in Criminology, SSPSSR
Dr Benjamin Hutchinson, School of European Culture and Languages (German)
Professor Bill Jenkins – 1941 to 2009 – Emeritus Professor, SSPSSR
Dr Evangelos Kyriakidis, School of European Culture and Languages (Classical Studies)
Lady Pamela Niven, Honorary Senior Member, Rutherford College
Dr Csaba La’da, School of European Culture and Languages (Classical Studies) Ruben Martin, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Professor Julia Twigg
General Sir Richard Dannatt
University of Kent 51
Annual Review
Principal officers
Visitor
The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury
Chancellor
Professor Sir Robert Worcester, KBE, DL, BSc (Kansas)
Chair of the Council
Valerie Marshall, MA (Cambridge), MBA (London), MSI LRAM
Vice-Chancellor
Professor Julia Goodfellow, CBE, BSc (Bristol), PhD (Open), FMedSci, FIBiol, FInstP
Deputy Chair of the Council
John Simmonds, AIB
Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor
David Nightingale, MA (Oxford)
Deputy Vice-Chancellors
Denise Everitt, BA (Kent), ACA Professor Keith Mander, BSc PhD (Nottingham), CEng, MBCS, MCMI
Pro-Vice-Chancellors
Professor John Baldock, BA (Oxford), MA (Kent) Professor Alex Hughes, BA PhD (London), Cert Ed (Oxford) Professor Clare Mackie, BSc PhD (Strathclyde), MSc (Glasgow), MCPP, MRPharmS
Dean of the Faculty of Humanities
Karl Leydecker, MA DPhil (Oxford)
Dean of the Faculty of Sciences
Professor Peter Jeffries, BSc PhD (London)
Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences
Professor Andrew Derrington, BA (Oxford), PhD (Cambridge)
Dean of the Graduate School
Professor Diane Houston, MA (Dundee), PhD (Kent), AcSS
Secretary of the Council
Karen Goffin, BA (Durham), MA (Kent)
Master of Darwin and Woolf Colleges
Nancy Gaffield, BA MA (Northern Colorado), MA (Kent)
Master of Eliot College
Michael Hughes, MA EdD (Sheffield), BEd Cert Ed (Exeter), Dip RSA
Master of Keynes College
Anthony Ward, MA (Cambridge), PhD (Nottingham)
Master of Rutherford College
Rachel Forrester-Jones, BSc (Econ), PhD (Wales), PGCHE (Kent)
College Master for Medway
Jane Glew, BSc (Aston), PG Dip (CIM), MA (Greenwich)
52 University of Kent
A review of this length can only indicate very briefly some of the principal achievements and activities which took place during 2009. The University also produces a report relating to finance. If you would like a copies of this, please contact Communications and Development Office, The Registry, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NZ. Published by the University of Kent. Produced by the Communications and Development Office. Designed by the University Design and Print Centre. Photography by Simon Jarratt, Robert Berry, Alison Hollis, Brett Lewis, David Sewell, Tim Ronalds Architects, NHS, istockphoto.com. Printed by Thanet Press. The information contained in this Review was correct at the time of going to press. The University reserves the right to modify or cancel any statement contained in it and accepts no responsibility for the consequences of any such changes.
DPC 108406 PUB131
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