The 2022 Aurora Spring Biannual took place last week in Innsbruck, Austria, with a record number of participants in attendance. Over 180 participants, from both Aurora universities as well as university participants beyond Europe, joined this event. The main focus of the 2022 Spring Biannual was to take stock of the main achievements and challenges of the first half of the European Universities Initiative programme while at the same time taking the first steps towards preparing for the second funding bid.

Hosted by the University of Innsbruck, the Aurora 2022 Spring Biannual took place on May 10-12. Tilmann Märk, Rector of the Universität Innsbruck, and Aurora President Jón Atli Benediktsson opened the Biannual with words of welcome. Rector Tilmann Märk specifically addressed Rector Tetyana Kaganovska of the National V.N. Karazin University Kharkiv, an associate member of the Aurora Alliance, who travelled all the way from Ukraine to join the Biannual. Professor Märk spoke about her bravery and the bravery of the Ukrainian nation, and expressed Aurora’s support for her, her staff and students by saying: “I dearly hope that we as the Aurora community can make a positive contribution to your fight against the current atrocities of war in your home country.” Read more about our support for Karazin at the Biannual (and beyond) here.

Sabine Allain Sainte‐Rose, Aurora Programme Director, gave an overview of the Alliance programme’s mid-term achievements. Over a period of 18 months, Aurora has increased its workforce capacity and improved engagement at a central and institutional level. As a result of hard work and dedication, the programme achieved a spectacular 91% of the 160 deliverables envisioned for this period. In addition, there have been more than 4.000 participations by students and staff members in over 140 Alliance opportunities. Highlights of our achievements include:

• Six Aurora partner universities signed a letter of intent to develop a two-year joint European Masters Programme on Digital Society and Global Citizenship. The programme will be multi- and transdisciplinary, not only restricted to Computer Science and AI, but include cross-cutting topics such as algorithms and bias in judgment and decision-making, artificial intelligence, ethics, and fair digital ecosystems and platforms
• The launch of the new Aurora website and Virtual Campus
• The vision of the future student population, making sure our universities’ student populations represent the diverse communities our universities serve, and
• The presentation of the Aurora Student Handbook by Aurora Student Council President Alma Ágústsdóttir, designed to ensure more sustainable engagement by students in our activities

Looking more toward the future and the next funding call, which will open in the autumn of 2022, Anne-May Janssen, Aurora Secretary-General, talked about the need for a sustainable Aurora, both in terms of integrated structures as well as funding. The next call will look to the European Universities to demonstrate that they create institutionalised cooperation with sustainable impact. Anne-May Janssen said that Aurora needs to look at the objectives of the next call and critically reflect on how they fit within Aurora and Aurora biannual Innsbruck 2022 higher education research to make sure we continue to work on the issues that members are passionate about to ensure a long-lasting partnership.

During the two-day conference, staff from all the Aurora members gathered to discuss and work on their respective work packages, such as Social Transformation, Academic Collaboration, Borderless Learning, Capacity Development Support, Sustainability, Quality Management, and many more.

Letter of Intent signed by six Aurora institutional representatives

President Aurora Student Council, Alma Ágústsdóttir hands over the Aurora Student Handbook to Aurora President Jón Atli Benediktsson

For an impression of the conference, you can find more photographs below.

Copyright: © Birgit Pichler

At the Aurora 2022 Spring Biannual in Innsbruck, Aurora President Jón Atli Benediktsson and Rector of the University of Innsbruck, Tilmann Märk, presented a cheque of €51,000 to Rector Tetyana Kaganovska of the National V.N. Karazin University Kharkiv, an Aurora Alliance associate member, in support of her university during these difficult times, to help fund the purchase of equipment that will allow university staff to continue teaching remotely, as means to show resistance during this war. Rector Tetyana Kaganovska gave a moving speech on how her university and city are navigating this new reality and focused on what is needed to continue education remotely in Ukraine.

The University of Kharkiv is an Associate Partner of the Aurora European University as part of the Aurora Capacity Development Support Programme, which drives cooperation between the Aurora members and Central and Eastern European universities. From the start of the war in Ukraine, Aurora universities have been offering its assistance, both directly to staff and students, as well as through financial support.

Many university buildings of Karazin Kharkiv University have been bombed and destroyed by the Russian military. Ukrainian professors and students are continuing their education in basements and bunkers under dire circumstances. In her statement, Rector Kaganovska shared:

“At the moment, we are living through the most difficult moments since Ukrainian independence. I come as a witness to the war, the killings and the displacement of my co-workers and students. In moments like these, I feel especially honoured to be able to personally represent our Kharkiv Karazin University community from eastern Ukraine.”

The workaround for the acute aid for Karazin Kharkiv University is led by Palacký University Olomouc and supported by the Aurora Central Office in Amsterdam. People from Kharkiv who have fled Ukraine are now able to work in Olomouc.

In her press statement, Rector Kaganovska shared that.

“Our University is a consolidated team of 28,000 employees and students, proud of their educational institution’s 217-year history. According to the QS rating, we are the best Ukrainian university, the country’s powerhouse of educational and scientific resources. The University is the heart of Kharkiv, and it remains in Kharkiv, despite the city’s being shelled and numerous attempts of siege lasting for 77 days. We were able to shelter the University’s staff and students as best we could and launched the educational process remotely on the 33rd day of the war.”

If you are interested in supporting Karazin Kharkiv University, please check out the links below:

• Donating funds to Karazin Kharkiv University is still possible and can be done here.
• Support Programme and Aurora’s actions to aid Karazin Kharkiv National University.
• Read the full press statement by Tetyana Kaganovska, President of V.N Karazin Kharkiv University, on the occasion of her participation in the Aurora Biannual Spring Meeting 2022 Innsbruck.

Would you like to learn more about Gen Z while addressing them with different information at your institutions?

Generation Z, also known as Gen Z, refers to the youngest generation born between 1996 and 2010. After finishing their studies, they will enter the workforce and become a leading and influential part of society. Together with Strateggo, a Prague-based Strategic Marketing Agency, Palacký University conducted an extensive survey in November 2021 and shared the findings that can be relevant to all Aurora universities, working on the co-engagement of their young student communities.

The workshop on Generation Z with Mr Císař from Strateggo was held on May 12 from 10:00-12:00 in a hybrid form at Palacký University Olomouc.

More about the event here

The event was organized in collaboration with the Aurora CDS Task Team at Palacky University (UP) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU). The event’s central theme was: “Transforming Higher Education with a focus on Social entrepreneurship & Diversity and inclusion”. The two-day training event was in a hybrid format: online via Zoom and face-to-face at UT campus in Tetova. The event was open to academic and non-academic staff of the Associate university partners and members of the broader CDS Network involved in teaching, students’ mobility, internationalisation of study programmes and university social engagement.

Training on social entrepreneurship was conducted online by Prof. Kai Hockerts (Copenhagen Business School) and Dr. Ondřej Kročil and Prof. Jaroslava Kubátová (Palacky University Olomouc). Diversity and inclusion was presented in person by Prof. Ruard Ganzevoort (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam).

The training sessions were video-recorded and made available together with all training materials through the AURORA-CDS virtual catalogue: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lUMjCSIOUHjvfdhDrl8EWG37ciRvhEV-?usp=sharing.

Scientists from three Aurora universities got five prestigious ERC advanced grants in the 2021 competition, three of which were allocated to researchers from the University of Innsbruck. We congratulate all laureates and their research teams.
University of Innsbruck:
– Hans BRIEGEL.
QuantAI – Artificial agency and learning in quantum environments.
– Francesca FERLAINO.
DyMETEr – Quantum Simulation with Long-Range-Interacting Dysprosium and Erbium: from Microscopy to Rydberg Tweezers.
– Kathrin THEDIECK.
BEYOND STRESS – The stress granule machinery controls metabolic signaling through mTOR at steady-state.
Copenhagen Business School:
– Poul Fritz KJAER.
GLOBALVALUE – Global Value Chain Law: Constituting Connectivity, Contracts and Corporations SH2.
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences & Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam:
– Eus VAN SOMEREN.
OVERNIGHT – Overnight Vulnerable Emotion Reset Normalizing Invalidating Generalized Hyperaroused Tension.
For more information see: https://erc.europa.eu/news/erc-2021-advanced-grants-results

We proudly announce the joining of forces between Aurora and OpenAIRE. This collaboration will make Open Science more accessible for Aurora scientists and demonstrate the societal impact of research with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The OpenAIRE-Nexus consortium and  Aurora have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Both will collaborate to map research output to the SDGs and provide new functionalities like SDG-oriented discovery and statistics on Open Science and learn from each other.

In this collaboration, Aurora will offer the  Aurora SDG text classification service that enables everyone to map academic texts in multiple European languages to the SDGs. A website (concept) where you can insert the abstract of your research paper, and it returns the predicted values of how much this abstract is related to the 17 SDGs, based on a multilingual AI. Additionally, it generates an SDG doughnut with the relative SDG predictions, and it can be used as a badge along with a research paper.

OpenAIRE will offer a CONNECT Gateway, a portal for Aurora Universities, as a single entry-point to all academic publications, data sets, research projects, software and other research outputs of the Aurora universities. In addition, the OpenAIRE MONITOR Dashboard will offer insight into the uptake of Open Science practices and the SDG related research.

OpenAIRE and Aurora will enhance their training material and courses: Aurora will include OpenAIRE services like Amnesia for data anonymisation, Argos for data management, Zenodo for data deposition, and EpiScience for setting up Open Access journals in its training courses on Open Science practices; OpenAIRE will exploit the program and outputs of the Aurora Open Science project to improve the documentation and training on the services of the Nexus portfolio.

“I’m delighted that Aurora has joined forces with OpenAire. Collaborating with OpenAire will help increase the visibility of our contribution towards the sustainable development goals and societal impact of our universities.”

“Our collaboration with Aurora opens up new paths for OpenAIRE to work hand in hand with universities that integrate open science in their daily workflows while matching their world-class academic excellence and societal engagement goals.”

About Aurora: Aurora is a partnership of like-minded and closely collaborating research-intensive European universities that use their academic excellence to drive societal change and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.

About OpenAIRE-Nexus: The Horizon 2020 OpenAIRE-Nexus project, a consortium of 11 partners, brings to Europe, EOSC and the world a set of services to implement and accelerate Open Science and tools to embed in researchers’ workflows, making it easier for them to accept and uptake Open Science practices of openness and FAIRness.

Are you thinking about the next step in your career? This 2-day online Spring School in Transferable Skills will focus on developing skills in grant and CV writing and how to get a faculty position. The school will provide the participants with an overview of the breadth of interviews that can be expected on your interview journey and will provide a space to practise interview questions. Also, topics such as team management, public engagement, gender equality and communication in academia and research will be discussed.

The Spring School is free and will be held online on Zoom on the 4^th and 5^th of May 2022. The School is open to all Aurora universities’ undergraduate, master and PhD students from the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) area.

To register, please email internationalfarmacia@unina.it by the 1st of May. A link to the event will be sent to all participants.

For more information, please download the School flyer.

Practical training in the use of geospatial technologies in hazard research and response 

This Aurora-supported intensive graduate-level field course is offered by of the Department of Geography and Tourism Studies of the University of Iceland, in collaboration with colleagues from the UI Science Institute and Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic.
Graduate students from Aurora universities are encouraged to apply, especially those with a background in human or physical geography, geology, environmental sciences or environmental engineering. Applicants are expected to have some basic knowledge of geographic information systems.

The course provides students a first-hand experience with state-of-the-art geospatial technologies that are becoming important for both basic research and practical response planning in locations exposed to natural hazards. The focus is on two methodological innovations, understanding physical processes that contribute to landslide hazards and enabling meaningful participation of local publics in hazard research and response.

The course gives students the chance to explore Icelandic nature, gain a practical experience in the field, and to work on projects in international teams.

Download the flyer for more information!

Intensive Field Course in Iceland

Brussels, 5 April 2022

European Research organisations, libraries, repositories and university networks call for the exclusion of not-for-profit repositories, digital archives and libraries from the obligations of the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Not-for-profit scientific and educational repositories, digital archives, and libraries that allow for the upload of content by students, researchers, and third parties, are likely to fall in the scope of the current version of the Digital Services Act. This is in spite of the fact that the legislation is devised for and targeted at commercial platforms. As a result, not-for-profit educational and scientific digital infrastructures would incur additional administrative and financial costs.

In addition, the signatories consider that the inclusion of not-for-profit scientific and educational repositories, digital archives, and libraries in the DSA scope would create inconsistency in EU legislation. ‘Not-for-profit educational and scientific repositories’ are already excluded from the scope of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (Article 2(6)). The signatories consider that legal coherence between the DSA and Digital Single Market Directive should be ensured to avoid confusion within our institutions.

The negotiation position adopted by the European Parliament provides a procedure to exempt not-for-profit repositories from the obligations imposed on online platforms. However, it is overly long and complex and will result in administrative and financial burdens that not-for-profit scientific and educational repositories, digital archives, and libraries will not be able to meet.

For these reasons, the undersigned organisations, including AURORA,  which represent most universities, research performing organisations, research funding organisations, research libraries and repositories in Europe, call for the exclusion of not-for-profit repositories, digital archives, and libraries from the obligations of the Digital Services Act.

20220404_Statement_DSA_Final

The Aurora Student Council stands with Ukraine in the face of the devastating and appalling invasion of Russia. This invasion is in direct violation of international law and benefits no one. We condemn the inhumane attack of the Russian government on the people of Ukraine and Ukrainian democracy.

Aurora is working with our Ukrainian associate partners at Karazin Kharkiv National University to identify areas of need and offer the necessary support. Our respective universities are working on supporting the Ukrainian Universities Association and are exploring how they can best offer support.

Our thoughts are with all students in Ukraine whose lives have been severely disrupted by the war. We urge our own respective governments to take action and support those seeking refuge from the war as quickly and in as direct a manner as possible.

Despite current events, we urge you to remember that we should not equate the actions of governments with their respective citizens. Our solidarity goes out to all Russians who bravely protest their own government and condemn their government’s action as much as we do. War is not a game in which we cheer for either side.

This is not the only ongoing humanitarian crisis in the world. We appreciate the efforts of Aurora and our institutions towards aiding in the crisis in Ukraine. Still, it is important to remember that students are experiencing conflict in various areas that have not been given the same amount of attention. We hope that in the future Aurora and our individual institutions will do better when it comes to recognising the aid that students in other war-torn regions require and providing the support needed.

As Aurora Student Council, we call for peace everywhere!

With love and solidarity,

Aurora Student Council