Kent Bulletin - University of Kent

Transmanche
University
The Education Secretary,
Charles Clarke, recently
signed an education accord
with his opposite number in
France, Luc Ferry, to establish
the first cross-Channel
university. The accord officially
endorses the two-yearold
Transmanche University
project initiated by Kent, the
three Universities of Lille
and the University of the
Littoral, which is based in
University
N E W S
Boulogne, Calais and
Dunkirk. The five universities
will collaborate on
research and teaching. Kent
students and staff will benefit
by regular cross-Channel
contact. Staff will exchange
and develop research ideas
and projects, while students
will benefit from greater
subject choice and the
chance to learn French in
France.
£4.5m grant from
the DTI
The University is to receive
The World Wildlife Fund (Peru) is funding the University’s
Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) to
establish a community-based conservation project in the Rio
Pastaza that will include DICE’s annual Amazon Research
and Learning Expedition.
Second-year students on the BSc in Biodiversity and
Conservation Management at DICE learn practical skills by
conducting research in the Peruvian Amazon, one of the
Earth’s most biodiverse regions. Final-year student Amanda
Hutchinson says, ‘the trip to Peru was amazing and I will
never forget it. Collecting data for ecological studies and
more than £4.5m from the
Department of Trade and
Industry under the Science
Research Investment Fund
(SRIF). The award will be
used to support the University’s
research activities, providing
opportunities for
investment in equipment, the
refurbishment of laboratory
space or upgrading existing
buildings.
The award was made as
part of a government scheme
to invest in scientific excellence.
The Vice-Chancellor,
Professor David Melville,
World Wildlife Fund sends students up the Amazon
said: ‘this is great news; the
University of Kent has a
worldwide reputation for the
quality of its research work,
which this grant can only
enhance. We plan to use the
money to develop state-ofthe-art
research facilities.’
Circles of Fear
The
recommendations
of
Breaking
the Circles
of Fear, a
report
about black people’s experience
of mental health services,
are soon to be
implemented as a three-year
project. Its lead researcher
and author is Dr Frank
Keating (above) of Kent’s
Tizard Centre. At present,
black people mistrust and
fear mental health services,
seeing animals previously discussed in lectures was a real
incentive to further my studies. There are two research boats,
the Lobo de Rio and the Nutria, and we could travel into the
interior to look at monkeys, macaws, parrots, caimans, fish,
deer and tapir’. The Expeditions are run in collaboration
with the Universidad Nacional de la Amazonia Peruana
(UNAP) and the Wildlife Conservation Society. University
of Kent and UNAP students work side-by-side, with Kent
students contributing a strong theoretical background and
UNAP students demonstrating excellent on-the-ground
experience.
while professionals and the
police are wary of black
service users. The result is a
vicious ‘circle of fear’ perpetuated
by prejudice, misunderstanding
and misconception.
Commissioned and
published by the Sainsbury
Centre for Mental Health
(SCMH), Breaking the Circles
of Fear will result in statutory
mental health and voluntary
sector groups being helped to
ensure that black service users,
families and carers receive a
better standard of care than
they do at present. These
groups will also be given a say
in what happens to them and
why. The project will be
managed by the SCMH with
funding from the Gatsby
Charitable Foundation.
In top five for
increased funding
Kent is among the country’s
top five universities in terms
of the percentage increase in
funds allocated by the Higher
Education Funding Council
(HEFCE) this year. Ten
percent of all of England’s
university expansion will be
at Kent, with more than 600
additional student places
available from this autumn.
Working with further education
colleges and other
higher education institutions,
Kent has developed a range
of initiatives to ensure university
education is accessible
to as many people as possible,
including those who
would never have previously
considered it as an option.
The increased grant represents
a rise in income of over
£7m for the University.
In particular, students in
Medway will benefit from the
additional funding, as well as
those in Tonbridge and
Canterbury. Over the past
three years, the University
people
Professor John Baldock will be the new Dean of Social
Sciences, succeeding Professor Chris Hale on 1
August. Robert Worcester has joined the University
Council, Jonathan Sloggett, formerly of
Dover Harbour Board and a long-time Member of
the University Council, will, from 1 August, Glynis Murphy
become Deputy Pro-Chancellor. Professor
Glynis Murphy is head of the Tizard Centre,
succeeding Peter McGill. Professor Michael
Fairhurst succeeds Professor Leslie Little as
Electronics Department Director.
Michael Fairhurst
has increased its student
population by over 2,500 and
this latest settlement ensures
growth is set to continue.
Kent academic to give
computers human touch
Howard Bowman and Colin
Johnson of the Computing
Laboratory have been awarded
a grant of £150,000 from
the Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council
(EPSRC) to construct
computational models of
human attention. The
research will be in collaboration
with the Medical
Research Council’s Cognition
and Brain Sciences Unit
in Cambridge, one of the
UK’s leading centres for
research into human attention.
Humans are very good at
focusing on the highest
priority event in their environment
and ignoring the
rest. If we see a car careering
off the road towards us, we
break our conversation and
immediately focus on the car
and jump out of its way.
Computer systems struggle
to perform effectively where
demands on them change
unpredictably.
This study will try to
increase our understanding
of human attention and
allow us to build computer
interfaces that are more
sensitive to the human user.
Writer-in-residence
Award-winning novelist
Radhika Jha is currently
Writer-in-residence at the
Centre for
Colonial
and Postcolonial
Research in
the School
of English.
Her first
novel, Smell, was published
by Quartet in 2001. It was
then translated into French
and won the Prix Guerlain.
The novel is set in Nairobi
and Paris, and tells the story
of Leila, an illegal immigrant.
Radhika, from Bangalore,
is now working on a
collection of stories.
The Writer-in-residence
programme is supported by
the Charles Wallace Trust of
India. The Programme is for
a writer from India to spend
up to 12 weeks at the University,
to make contact with
British audiences and publishers,
and to write. Though
they have no teaching obligations,
the writer-in-residence
may participate in workshops
or give readings and talks
while at Kent. Past writersin-residence
have included
Upamanyu Chatterjee,
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