- published: 05 Jun 2015
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The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as Cantuar. for post-nominals) is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1965 and is regarded as one of the UK's "plate glass universities".
The University of Kent's main site is a rural campus just north of Canterbury situated within 300 acres of park land, which houses over 4,300 students. The university has additional UK sites in Medway and Tonbridge, and postgraduate centres in Brussels and Paris. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise the University of Kent was placed 24th out of 118 participating institutions in terms of the best, or 4*, research in a ranking produced by Times Higher Education.
The University of Kent is frequently ranked in the top 30 in rankings of British universities. In 2010 just under 30,000 students applied to the University of Kent through UCAS and 5,242 accepted offers of places. The average UCAS points offer given for 2011/12 was 349 or AAB-AAA. Kent is a member of the Santander Network of European universities encouraging social and economic development.
Kent /ˈkɛnt/ is a county in South East England, and one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of Medway. Kent has a nominal border with France halfway through the Channel Tunnel. Maidstone is its county town and historically Rochester and Canterbury have been accorded city status, though only the latter still holds it.
Kent's location between London and the continental Europe has led to its being in the front line of several conflicts, including the Battle of Britain during World War II. East Kent was known as Hell Fire Corner during the conflict. England has relied on the county's ports to provide warships through much of the past 800 years; the Cinque Ports in the 12th–14th centuries and Chatham Dockyard in the 16th–20th centuries were of particular importance to the country's security. France can be seen clearly in fine weather from Folkestone, and the iconic White Cliffs of Dover.