Skyfall Screenwriters to Receive University of Kent Honorary Degrees

Kent alumni Neal Purvis and Robert Wade will receive their awards at Canterbury Cathedral at 10.30am.

Acclaimed screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade have written five James Bond films, including Skyfall, the UK's highest grossing movie. Neal Purvis studied Film and Photographic Arts, while Robert Wade studied Film Theory and English at the University. Since then, they have forged a successful career writing screenplays together. They have worked in a variety of genres with screenplays such as the spy comedy Johnny English, and The Italian Job remake.

The University of Kent has also awarded Honorary degrees to BBC Radio Four presenter Carolyn Quinn and writer Maureen Duffy, as well as Judge George Arestis, Sir Michael Bett, Jonathan Cooper, Professor Bleddyn Davies, Professor Dame Ann Dowling, Freddy Kempf, Sir Peter Ricketts, Professor Richard Rosen and Dr Elizabeth Vallance.

Notes to editors

The University of Kent - the UK's European university - was established at Canterbury in 1965. It has almost 20,000 students and operates campuses or study centres at Canterbury, Medway, Tonbridge, Brussels, Paris, Athens and Rome. It has long-standing partnerships with more than 100 major European universities and many others across the world, including institutions in Argentina, China, Japan, USA, Canada, Malaysia and Peru.

Kent is one of the few universities to be consistently rated by its own students as one of the best in the UK for the quality of its teaching and academic provision. This includes its 3^rd place for overall student satisfaction in the 2012 National Student Survey. It was also ranked 20^th in the 2014 Guardian University Guide, 28^th in the Sunday Times University League Table 2013, and 28^th in the Complete University Guide 2014.

In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, Kent placed 24^th out of 159 participating institutions in the UK for its world-leading research, while 97% of its academic staff work in schools or centres where the research is rated as either internationally or nationally excellent.

It is worth £0.6 billion to the economy of the South East, with its students contributing £211 million to that total. The University also supports directly or indirectly almost 6,800 jobs in the South East (source: Viewforth Consulting, 2009-10).

In 2012, Kent launched a campaign to celebrate its 50^th anniversary.

For further information, to register photographer attendance or interviews, contact the Press Office at the University of Kent
Tel: +44(0)1227-823100/823581
Email: [email protected]
News releases can also be found at http://www.kent.ac.uk/news
University of Kent on Twitter: http://twitter.com/UniKent