Press Centre page

Press Centre

Welcome to our Press centre. Here you will find information on how to contact our Press team, read our press releases, and learn about some of key facts and inspirational people that have helped Newman the great University it is. 

For all press or media enquiries, please contact our Press team

If you work in the media and would like to learn more about any aspect of Newman, including our world-leading research, or speak with any of our academic experts, our team will be happy to help.  

Newman is known regionally, nationally and internationally for our research strengths, with particular excellence and expertise in:

  • Creativity, Culture and Heritage
  • Cyber Security, Digital Technology and Communication
  • Health, Social Care and Wellbeing
  • Social Justice, Inequalities and Conflict
  • Sustainability, Environment and Natural Resources

Latest news

Contact our Press team

Call

Katherine Moss, External Communications Lead

Get in touch with us if:

  • You would like to speak to one of our many experts or learn more about their research.
  • You want to record or film at any of our campuses. We are happy to work with you on this but please note that permission must be requested in advance.
  • You want more information about Newman or have any queries about the University.

Meet our experts

We are immensely proud of our alumni, many of whom remain keen ambassadors for Newman around the world. Here are just some of our alumni that have gone on to achieve great things. 

Spotlight on notable alumni

Gavin Esler (Rutherford 1971)

Journalist and author Gavin Esler is the sixth Chancellor at Newman. He studied English and American Literature and was an awarded an honorary MA in 1995.

Ellie Goulding (Rutherford 2006)

Singer and songwriter Ellie Goulding is an alumna of Newman who studied drama and theatre studies. She received an honorary degree in 2019.

Read more

Alan Davies (Keynes 1984)

Comedian, actor and author Alan Davies was a student at Newman in the 1980s. Watch our YouTube video as he sits down with our Chancellor Gavin Esler in our 'In Conversation series' back in 2019.

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Susannah Townsend MBE (Medway 2008)

Susannah is an Olympic winning field-hockey player who studied Sports and Exercise Science at Medway and still regular trains on our campus.

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Sir Kazuo Ishiguro (Darwin 1974)

Award-winning author Sir Kazuo Ishiguro studied English and Philosophy at Newman.

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Dr YolanDa Brown (Keynes 2001)

Double MOBO Award Winning Saxophonist YolanDa Brown studied European Management Science at Newman and is now our Chancellor of the university.

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Since we opened in 1965, we have had many outstanding and influential academics teach and research at the University. This includes Nobel Prize Winner for Literature Emeritus Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah. 

Emeritus Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah was born in Zanzibar, Tanzania. He is the author of ten highly acclaimed novels including Paradise, which was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker Prize. Until his recent retirement, he was Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the School of English. Professor Gurnah was a member of the Man Booker Prize judging panel in 2016. 

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for ‘his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.’ 

Find out more about Abdulrazak Gurnah

Essential Newman

 Want to know things about our College? Here's some key facts about Newman...  

Key links and information

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Newman at a glance

  • We have links with over 400 institutions around the world
  • We've been designated a Fair Trade university since 2006
  • We're located in Canterbury, Medway, Brussels and Paris - find out more about our locations
  • We have eight colleges: Eliot, Rutherford, Keynes, Darwin, Woolf, Medway, Turing and Park Wood College.
  • For the history of Newman visit our Pride in our Past page.   
  • We have two libraries containing over 1.1 million books and journals, thousands of e-books, e-journals and databases with over 2,700  study spaces 
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Students

  • Total number of students - 18,865
  • Number of students on Canterbury campus - 15,645
  • Number of students on Medway campus - 2,000
  • Number of Undergraduate full-time students - 14,530
  • Number of Postgraduate full-time students - 2,510
  • Student population - 54% women, 46% men
  • Students from 152 countries are represented at Newman, 80% (UK), 13% (overseas), 8% (Europe)
  • Student accommodation - over 5,300 bedrooms at Canterbury, 1,100 at Pier Quays in Medway 
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Staff and Alumni

  • Total number of staff - 4,592 - 1,243 of these are academic staff 
  • Staff population - 57% women, 43% men
  • Staff profile - 77% (UK), 23% from Europe and overseas
  • Total number of alumni - 181,000 from over 180 countries