In the wake of the Aurora 2030 Kick-off in November 2023, the Aurora European university alliance further consolidates its scientific and academic collaboration among member institutions by building an Aurora Research and Innovation community.
Building on the progress from the first phase of Aurora, this Call for Incentive Research Projects, Thematic Summer Schools and Early-stage Researcher Mobilities is part of Aurora 2030 Work Package 5: Enhancing Quality of Research through an Aurora Research and Innovation (R&I) Community, and therefore aims to foster a fertile environment for the excellent quality of research and research collaboration through shared values and practices within Aurora.
“During its first phase, Aurora universities have successfully set up an inventory of research infrastructures that they are ready to share for common research,” says Matthias Beekmann, Director of Observatoire des Sciences de l’univers at Université Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC) and Task Team 5.2 Leader on Academic Collaboration and Community Building. “With the incentive call launched today, we want to go a big step forward in bringing researchers from Aurora together.”
Indeed, through common research activities and mobility actions, the present Call will continue to strengthen the relationships among researchers and scientific communities within member institutions and raise awareness about R&I activities and Aurora on a much broader academic level.
Driving Research for Education and Societal Impact
Harnessing collective knowledge from the Aurora scientific community enhances the quality of research and, thus, increases its ability to address key world challenges and make a positive and sustainable societal impact in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With this vision in mind, the present Call welcomes applications in research disciplines and topics that fall within the five Aurora 2030 educational hubs: Sustainability & Climate Change, Digital Society & Global Citizenship, Health & Wellbeing, Culture: Diversities & Identities, and Social Entrepreneurship. Going further than this, the Call is open to all research disciplines as long as the proposed project fosters real new collaboration.
To continue growing the next generation of Aurora academics prepared to conduct research, impart knowledge and catalyze change in a meaningful and durable way, this Call intends to create opportunities and incentives for both early-stage and established academics by supporting three types of key actions:
- Incentive and Collaborative Research Projects
This action supports concrete exploratory research activities that emphasise the complementarity of competencies and approaches gained from the expected collaboration between researchers of different Aurora member institutions.
- Thematic Summer Schools
This action comprises opportunities for career development, knowledge-sharing and network/community-building through thematic disciplinary training for early-stage researchers.
- Short-term Research Secondments for Early-stage Researchers
This action boosts researchers’ skill set by supporting short-term mobility of up to three months in a research laboratory or unit of an Aurora 2030 full-member institution.
The Building Blocks of the Aurora Research and Innovation Community
Raised on the foundation of collaboration between nine higher education institutions in Europe, today Aurora officially releases its Call for Incentive Research Projects, Thematic Summer Schools and Early-stage Researcher Mobilities, one of the building blocks towards an Aurora R&I Community. The deadline for submission runs until 12 pm (CET) on April 30, 2024.
