Michelangelo: 'Not Ticked All the Metrics'

Michelangelo: 'a glorious failure'

Whilst there has been some disquiet amongst arts organisations about Arts Council England's plans to introduce a national quantitative system for evaluating the quality of the art it funds, they needn't worry. Such systems have long been used by commissioners of artistic works. A transcript of a discussion between Pope Julius II and Michelangelo has recently come to light that confirms that such 'quality metrics' were already in place when the artist was working on the Sistine Chapel. We reprint it here to put our readers' minds at rest.

Figures behind the Figures: Dr Heather Ferguson

Each term I feature a different Kent award winner in the Research Services newsletter, looking at their research and discussing their career path and funding track record. I thought it would be worth adding these to the Blog. In April I featured Dr Natalia Sobrevilla Perea. This time the spotlight falls on Dr Heather Ferguson in the School of Psychology.

Dr Heather Ferguson

Mapping Regional Strengths

A lot has happened since July 2015 when the then Chancellor, George Osborne talked about working with universities and other partners to map regional strengths. The article below, published in March this year, looked at their plans, and the report from the Council for Science and Technology that had just done such a mapping exercise. What with Brexit, the HE White Paper, the Stern and Nurse Reviews, well: attention has been elsewhere. Still, an interesting reminder of how far we've travelled in six months - for better or worse.