The story
Origins
A university in the city of Canterbury was first considered in 1947, when an anticipated growth in student numbers led several residents to seek the creation of a new university, including Kent. However, the plans never came to fruition. A decade later both population growth and greater demand for university places led to a re-consideration. In 1959 the Education Committee of Kent County Council explored the creation of a new university, formally accepting the proposal unanimously on 24 February 1960. Two months later the Education Committee agreed to seek a site at or near Canterbury, given the historical associations of the city, subject to the support of Canterbury City Council.
By 1962 a site was found at Beverley Farm, straddling the then boundary between the City of Canterbury and the administrative county of Kent. The university's original name, chosen in 1962, was the University of Kent at Canterbury, reflecting its cross-boundary campus. The name adopted reflected the support of both the city and county authorities; as well as the existence of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, which officially opposed the use of a name too similar to its own. The abbreviation "UKC" became a popular abbreviation for the university.
1965 to 2000
The University of Kent at Canterbury was granted its Royal Charter on 4 January 1965 and the first group of 500 students arrived on 11 October 1965. On 30 March 1966 Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent was formally installed as the first Chancellor.
The university was envisaged as being a collegiate establishment, with most students living in one of the colleges on campus, and as specialising in inter-disciplinary studies in all fields. Over the years, changes in government policy and other changing demands have largely destroyed this original concept, leading to the present state, which is nearer the norm for a British university. However, the four original colleges – Darwin, Eliot, Keynes and Rutherford – remain, together with the newer Woolf and Turing colleges.
The university grew at a rapid rate throughout the 1960s, with three colleges and many other buildings on campus being completed by the end of the decade. The 1970s saw further construction, but the university also encountered the biggest physical problem in its history. The university had been built above a tunnel on the disused Canterbury and Whitstable Railway. In July 1974 the tunnel collapsed, damaging part of the Cornwallis Building, which sank nearly a metre within about an hour on the evening of 11 July. Fortunately, the university had insurance against subsidence, so it was able to pay for the south-west corner of the building to be demolished and replaced by a new wing at the other end of the building.
Unix computers arrived in 1976 and UKC set up the first Unix to Unix copy (UUCP) test service to Bell Labs in the U.S. in 1979. UKC provided the first UUCO connections to non-academic users in the UK in the early 1980s.
In 1982 the university opened the University Centre at Tonbridge (now the University of Kent at Tonbridge) for its School of Continuing education, helping to enhance the availability of teaching across the county. Building elsewhere included the Park Wood accommodation village and the Darwin houses in 1989.
During the 1990s and 2000s the university expanded beyond its original campus, establishing campuses in Medway, Tonbridge and Brussels, and partnerships with Canterbury College, West Kent College, South Kent College and MidKent College.
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2000 to present
In the 2000s the university entered a collaboration named Universities at Medway with the University of Greenwich, MidKent College and Canterbury Christ Church University to deliver university provision in the Medway area. This led to the development of the University of Kent at Medway, opened from 2001. Initially based at Mid-Kent College, a new joint campus opened in 2004. Small postgraduate centres opened in Paris in 2009, and later in Rome and Athens.
As a consequence of the expansion outside Canterbury the university's name was formally changed to the University of Kent on 1 April 2003. Part of the original reasoning for the name disappeared when local government reforms in the 1970s resulted in the Canterbury campus falling entirely within the City of Canterbury, which no longer has county borough status, and Kent County Council.
In 2007 the university was rebranded with a new logo and website. The logo was chosen following consultation with existing university students and those in sixth forms across the country.
The University of Kent set its tuition fees for UK and European Union undergraduates at £9,000 for new entrants in 2012, which was approved by the Office for Fair Access (OFFA). The fee was approved by Council on 1 April 2011 and was confirmed by OFFA in July 2011. The proposed changes to UK and EU undergraduate tuition fees did not apply to international student fees.
Following the extension of Keynes College in 2001, two new colleges opened on the Canterbury campus, Woolf College for postgraduates in 2008 and Turing College for undergraduates in 2015. Several other new buildings were also added, including the Jarman School of Arts Building in 2009, the Colyer-Fergusson Music Building, a performing arts space, in 2012, and the Sibson building, housing maths and the business school, in 2017. A major £27m project to extend and refurbish the Templeman Library began in 2013, was completed in 2017 and formally opened in 2018. Additional accommodation was provided for students at the Medway Campus with the completion of Liberty Quays in 2009.
In 2015, the university held a number of events to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Festivals were held in Canterbury and Medway, a summer festival, the funding of twelve Beacon Projects and the temporary erection of a Ferris Wheel on the Canterbury campus. In 2016, a consultation was launched on a masterplan for future development of the Canterbury campus. In March 2017 it was announced that, in partnership with Canterbury Christ Church University, the University of Kent had been given funding to develop Kent and Medway Medical School. In 2023, more than 450 students in the Kent's Students' Union voted in favour of moving all catering to plant-based. The vote follows similar votes at other universities.
The University of Kent saw its first two alumni going on to win Nobel prizes, both for literature: Kazuo Ishiguro (English and Philosophy, 1978) in 2017 and Abdulrazak Gurnah (PhD, 1982) in 2021.
In June 2022, the University of Kent signed a twinning agreement with Kherson State University (KSU) in Ukraine as part of the UK government-backed Universities UK (UUK) initiative. The partnership aims to support KSU during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, providing academic and technical assistance, including online English classes, guest lectures, and research collaboration. This agreement is part of a broader effort by UK universities to support Ukrainian institutions affected by the war.
In 2024, as part of its "Kent 2030" strategy to address financial challenges, the University of Kent announced plans to discontinue six courses: anthropology, art history, health and social care, journalism, music and audio technology, and philosophy. This decision raised concerns among students and staff regarding the potential impact on academic diversity and future career opportunities. In response to the proposed course closures and the planned elimination of 58 jobs, staff at the university voted in favour of strike action. Additionally, a petition to preserve the affected courses garnered over 16,000 signatures.
A revision of the university's ordinances in June 2025 deleted the section on colleges that had been present up to the 2024 revision, removing them from the university's constitutional documents.
On the 10th September 2025, the university announced plans to merge with the University of Greenwich, with degrees continuing to be awarded under either the Kent or Greenwich name rather than adopting a single unified university designation. The two universities merged to form the London and South East University Group in August 2026.
In March 2026, an outbreak of meningitis in Canterbury, including the university's campus, led to the deaths of two people (one a Kent student), while a number of other people were hospitalised.
From Wikipedia’s article on University of Kent, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5