Venu

The University of Kent is one of the UK’s leading academic institutions, with a commitment to excellence in teaching and research that has spanned five decades. Established in 1965, we are now a top 20 university and known as the UK’s European university, we have specialist postgraduate centres in Brussels, Paris, Athens and Rome. We have grown from 500 to 20,000 students, representing 149 nationalities. We foster a community in which we value global citizenship, ethical thinking, and the development and application of new knowledge. In the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014, Kent was ranked 17th* for research output and research intensity, in the Times Higher Education, outperforming 11 of the 24 Russell Group universities.

At the School of Computing, our world-leading researchers, in key areas such as systems security, programming languages, communications, computational intelligence and memory management, and in interdisciplinary work with biosciences and psychology, earned us an outstanding result in the most recent national research assessment. The School hosts the University's GCHQ/EPSRC accredited Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research, one of only 13 in the country. In addition, two of our staff have been honoured as Distinguished Scientists by the ACM and we have also held Royal Society Industrial Fellowships. As an internationally recognised Centre of Excellence for programming education, the School of Computing is a leader in computer science teaching. Two of our staff have received the ACM SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education. We are also home to two National Teaching Fellows, to authors of widely used textbooks and to award-winning teaching systems such as BlueJ.

Grimond Building

ECSA 2017 will take place in the Grimond Building at the University of Kent. Having undergone a full refurbishment in the Summer of 2012, it houses 3 large lecture theatres and 8 seminar rooms. The Grimond Building is located centrally on the campus, behind the Templeman Library.

 

About Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic town dominated by its Cathedral. The ruins of St Augustine's Abbey and St Martin's Church form Canterbury's UNESCO World Heritage Site. The pedestrianised centre has numerous medieval buildings and is easy to explore on foot.

You can walk along or take a boat trip on the river Stour. Even the seaside at Whitstable or Broadstairs is reachable by public transport within half an hour.

Links for Tourism

• The official tourism website
• Peter Collinson's tour of the City of Canterbury

Weather

Be prepared for both a heavy shower and nice sunshine within 5 minutes.

• BBC weather forecast for Canterbury

From university campus to Canterbury town centre

• Bus: Near Keynes College is the main bus stop of the university. There are several bus stops around town and all buses stop at the bus station on the eastern end of the high street. Information on buses between the University campus and canterbury can be found here.
• Walk: Alternatively, you can walk to the cathedral in 30 minutes. The footpath, avoiding any busy roads, starts between Eliot College and Becket Court (see campus guide map). Just follow the signs. Often you see the cathedral towers ahead.