A case study submitted to the Research Excellence Framework 2014 demonstrating the impact of the University's research.
Led by Professor Michael Kölling of the School of Computing, the Greenfoot project has transformed the way that teenagers learn how to program – beginners can learn new programming skills by developing games and simulations. Greenfoot allows learners to experiment while developing their skills and, thanks to immediate feedback, it motivates them and helps them to engage in the process. Greenfoot’s user community and discussion group also has a major influence on the learning experience.
Greenfoot has more than 600,000 new users each year – in schools, in after-school clubs and at home. It is one of the very few systems, internationally, to achieve this level of impact on programming education.
The Research Excellence Framework 2014 showed that Kent ranks 17th in the UK for research intensity, has world-leading research in all subjects and that 97% of our research is deemed to be of international quality.
Contributing to the University’s REF success were the number of our world class publications, the number of research active staff and the demonstrable impact our research has made to the sciences and to economic, social and cultural understanding.