Skyfall Screenwriters to Receive University of Kent Honorary Degrees

Skyfall Screenwriters to Receive University of Kent Honorary Degrees

CANTERBURY, England, July 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --



The screenwriters of the BAFTA-winning James Bond movie, Skyfall, are to receive
honorary degrees from the University of Kent on Friday 19 July 2013.



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 3rd place for overall student satisfaction in the 2012 National Student
Survey. It was also ranked 20th in the 2014 Guardian University Guide, 28th in the Sunday
Times University League Table 2013, and 28th in the Complete University Guide 2014.



In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, Kent placed 24th 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 GBP0.6 billion to the economy of the South East, with its students
contributing GBP211 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 50th 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: pressoffice@kent.ac.uk
News releases can also be found at http://www.kent.ac.uk/news
University of Kent on Twitter: http://twitter.com/UniKent




University of Kent


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