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Aurora Service Learning Toolbox

Written by rostanetek on . Posted in News, Trainings.

At the core of the Aurora is its cardinal goal to equip students with the right knowledge, skills, mindset, and experience to address societal challenges as agents of change. The Service Learning (SL) and Co-creation approach can help bring this core mission of the Aurora alliance to fruition. Service-learning is an academic teaching/learning method that connects meaningful community service with academic learning, personal growth, and civic responsibility. Co-creation is a form of service-learning that entails the collaboration of diverse stakeholders in the co-production of value/knowledge (concepts, solutions, products, services). Together these two approaches foster engagement of academicians and students with societal stakeholders to address societal challenges.

This toolbox provides relevant tools, resources, and inspiration to foster understanding and application of service-learning and co-creation in Aurora universities. We hope these resources will help interested teachers and students to apply service-learning and co-creation in their academic practice. Information on how to use the toolbox is presented below.

How to use the Aurora Service Learning Toolbox

Please choose from the three modules below what you would like to do. The three modules provide pertinent information, tools, and support to foster service-learning and co-creation in Aurora Universities.

The first module provides information, tools and inspiration on service-learning and co-creation.

The second module provides information on available service-learning programs, courses, and practices in Aurora Universities.

 

The third module helps connect those who seek advice or support on service learning or co-creation to experts and their counsel.

Aurora Ranks in Times Higher Education Impact Rankings

Written by rostanetek on . Posted in News.

Aurora universities have appeared in high positions in the Times Higher Education SDG ranking and excelled in numerous SDGs.

Times Higher Education has ranked universities based on their performance against indicators of global social and economic impact and advancement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings consider all 17 SDGs, and each university is scored for its performance in advancing each goal. A university’s overall ranking is then based on its top three SDG scores plus its score for Goal 17, Partnerships for the Goals.

Aurora member university, the University of Aberdeen, has been placed 57th out of 1,115 institutions worldwide in the newly published Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings. Areas in which the university has excelled include Partnership for the Goals (SDG17) and Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG11), where Aberdeen has been placed 27th globally for both. The University of Iceland has ranked in the SDGs health and wellbeing (SDG3), industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG9), as well as responsible consumption and production (SDG12). The University of Iceland’s overall position in THE Impact Rankings is 301-400. Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) maintains its position, although 347 more institutions have entered this ranking and have high rankings for Climate Action (SDG13), Gender Equality (SDG5) and Quality Education (SDG4).  UEA ranked between 101-200 out of 1,115 institutions in total, placing it in the top 20% for its sustainable development. UEA participated in six of the 17 SDGs, and achieved some other positive results, including 57th place out of a possible 653 for ‘Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions’ (SDG16). Joint 74th out of a possible 871 for ‘Good Health and Wellbeing (SDG3). The four SDGs to which VU Amsterdam connects the most are Climate Action (SDG13), Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG 9), Gender Equality (SDG 5), Reduced Inequalities (SDG 10). The overarching position of the university in the Impact ranking 2021 is in the range of 101-200. Aurora associate member university, Palacký University Olomouc, has rankings in Good health and wellbeing (SDG3), Decent Work and Economic growth (SDG8), Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG11), and Partnerships for the Goal (SDG17). Overall the university is ranked in the 401-600 position.

Aurora congratulates its universities with these outstanding results. Aurora is extremely committed to matching academic excellence with societal impact, and these rankings prove that we are well on our way. The Aurora SDG Bibliometrics tool developed is an exceptional tool that maps the research output by all our universities: please view the tool here. More about Aurora here.

Join Aurora Alliance CDS Network of Universities

Written by rostanetek on . Posted in Calls, News.

The Capacity Development Support Programme (CDS) of the Aurora European Universities Alliance is looking for universities to collaborate with.

The CDS programme is designed to help reduce the disparities between the research-leading and research-emerging countries in Europe by assisting universities in Central-Eastern Europe and Neighboring Countries to develop their institutional capacity for academic excellence and societal relevance. The expected outcomes are to spread the Aurora Alliance principles, values, skills, working processes and practical learnings to some 30 target universities in Europe and beyond.

To this end, Aurora Capacity Development Support Network of Universities (CDS Network of Universities) is being set up, with the purpose to articulate and strengthen the collaboration in supporting universities that are interested in the same objectives as Aurora Alliance member universities: in equipping diverse student populations with the skills and mind-set to address societal challenges as social entrepreneurs and innovators; in engaging with students and stakeholders at regional, national, European and global level; and in making our universities sustainable organisations.

The Aurora CDS Network of Universities is an inclusive platform for universities that want to work with Aurora’s common objectives. Applicant universities should freely express interest in the Aurora Alliance CDS mission as described in the Introduction section of this document by submitting a Letter of Intent and a University Fact Sheet to Tereza Kalousková via email at

The criteria for joining us is the following:

  • Applicant universities understand the key objectives of the Aurora Alliance programme and are interested in furthering in at least some of these objectives at their institutions.
  • Applicant universities express willingness to invest time and bring their resources and expertise to the collaboration.
  • Applicants are made aware of external funding needed for collaboration activities developing in the Network.

Applicants will be assessed on a rolling basis 2021-2022 by the CDS Task Team, led by Palacky University Olomouc with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam as co-lead. In the assessment, the opinion of the Associate Partners will be sought.

What We Offer – Network Programme

During the 2021-2023 period of collaboration, we focus our exchanges on awareness-raising training events and projects developed together, focusing:

  • Virtual Mobility/Internationalization at home
  • Co-creation and Service Learning
  • Inclusive, Equal and Diverse Education
  • Academic Competence Skill in Social Entrepreneurship.

The continued programme and activates of the Network will be a subject of evolving collaboration and co-sharing of interests in the internationalisation of higher education.

Cooperation Arrangement

There will be no legally binding duties between the members as a result of entering into the Network collaboration. Any bilateral agreements between the Network universities are subject to the inter-institutional arrangements and internal institutional regulations and policy in international cooperation.

For more information, please access the information sheet .

Aurora Spring Biannual ’21

Written by rostanetek on . Posted in Events.

On May 20th and 21st, Aurora will hold its 10th Biannual Meeting. Spread over the entire day of Thursday, May 20th and Friday, May 21st until Mid-afternoon, academics, students, university leaders and administrators will come together to continue ongoing work, meet new colleagues and celebrate existing friendships.

The Aurora Spring 2021 Biannual commences with a plenary session featuring Head of the Cabinet to Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Education, Culture and Youth Adrienn Király and a panel discussion on the future of academic collaboration between British and other European universities Brexit. Prof. Paul Boyle, the vice-chancellor of Swansea University, UK and EUA Vice-President, will discuss this and join a panel discussion with Prof. Yassine Lakhnech (president of the University of Grenoble Alpes, member of Aurora) and Emily Reise, Aurora student representative (UIce). The panel will be moderated by John Style, Vice-Rector International of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili.

The first full day on May 20th will end with a lively and informal virtual reception. Jón Atli Benediktsson will be introducing the incoming Aurora Secretary-General, Anne-May Janssen

In between plenary and reception, the first Biannual day will offer many active Aurora task teams the time to sit and work together in parallel time slots in the morning and early afternoon. Simultaneously, the Aurora presidents will discuss their vision of Aurora’s future and the future benefits of being an Aurora university.

The afternoon will also feature four broad parallel sessions, each covering one of the more overarching themes of Aurora, such as “Education”, “Stakeholders”, “Academic engagement”, and “Sustainability”. Aurora welcomes president Joan Gabel of the University of Minnesota as a guest of honour. President Gabel will take part in the “Sustainability” session and share her views on the topic.

On Friday, May 21st, both the Aurora Universities Network and the Aurora European University Alliance will have a session of their respective supreme governance bodies: the Network General Council and the Alliance Board of Presidents. These formal meetings will be part of the first and second Friday parallel timeslots. The Aurora Network, General Council meeting, will run concurrently with many dissemination sessions. Aurora Biannual participants can find out about tools and services being developed to help Aurora academics, students and administrators. The Aurora Alliance Board of President’s meeting will run simultaneously with more task team working sessions.

Virtual venue & registration

The virtual conference platform will allow us to switch between formal sessions and meeting informally and casually as we see each other passing by the Aurora Biannual lounges.

Registration is through this link. We will liaise on registered participants with the institutional coordinators of your university, and we invite you to also inform your institutional coordinator of your intention to participate. Once your registration is confirmed, you will receive information by May 13th at the latest on how to log on to the virtual conference platform and instructions on how to navigate it.

 Please access the program by clicking the green button below.

 

Critical Perspectives on Governance Conferenc

Written by rostanetek on . Posted in Events.

The Conference on Critical Perspectives on Governance by Sustainable Development Goals is a biannual event organised by the Centre for Sustainable Development Studies (CSDS) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA).

The focus of the conference will be SDG4: “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” It aims to mobilize scholars young and old, policymakers, and civil society to share perspectives on the various roles education can play in relation to inclusive development.

During this conference, you will have the opportunity to assess the relevance of the goal, and its related targets and indicators, as well as develop a better understanding of the toolbox that is used to further its achievement.

More information about the program, different forms of participation and registration can be found below.

REGISTER HERE

MORE INFORMATION

Aurora Endorses the Manifesto For EU COVID-19

Written by rostanetek on . Posted in News.

Aurora has signed the Manifesto For EU Covid-19 Research that maximizes the accessibility of research results in the fight against COVID-19. All Aurora universities support this quest to join forces on ground breaking research and innovation.

The Manifesto is part of the EU Coronavirus response, the common European response to the coronavirus outbreak. It provides guiding principles for beneficiaries of EU research grants for coronavirus prevention, testing, treatment and vaccination to ensure that their research results will be accessible for all and guarantee a return on public investment. This will aim to ensure that no one is left behind in the fight against Covid-19 and that solutions will be developed, produced and deployed to every single corner of the world.

By endorsing the manifesto, Aurora will support to:

  • Make the generated results, whether tangible or intangible, public and accessible without delay, for instance on the Horizon Results Platform, on an existing IP sharing platform, or through an existing patent pool.
  • Make scientific papers and research data available in open access without delay and following the FAIR principles via preprint servers or public repositories, with rights for others to build upon the publications and data and with access to the tools needed for their validation. In particular, make COVID-19 research data available through the European COVID-19 Data Platform
  • Where possible, a grant for a limited time, non-exclusive royalty-free licences on the intellectual property resulting from EU-funded research. These non-exclusive royalty-free licenses shall be given in exchange for the licensees’ commitment to rapidly and broadly distribute the resulting products and services under fair and reasonable conditions to prevent, diagnose, treat and contain COVID-19

The Manifesto seeks the voluntary support and endorsement from public and private stakeholders benefitting from EU funding, as well as from other research funders and prominent institutions. An updated list of organisations that already endorsed the Manifesto may be found here.

Aurora European University Alliance Programme Accepted

Written by rostanetek on . Posted in News.

Proud and happy, we announce that the Aurora European University Alliance programme has been accepted by the European Commission. The Aurora European University Alliance programme will be one of 41 projects leading the way in helping to create a European Higher Education and Research community.

The Aurora Alliance has been selected by the European Commission as one of the now 41 European University initiatives supported through the Erasmus+ programme to lead the way to a European Higher Education and Research sector that contributes to a Europe of prosperity and well-being.

The Aurora Alliance stems from the Aurora Universities Network. Originally formed in 2016, Aurora is a network of research-intensive universities deeply committed to the social impact of our activities, and with a history of engagement with our communities.

The Aurora Alliance consists of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, University of East Anglia, University of Iceland, University Duisburg-Essen, University Rovira I Virgili, University of Naples, University of Innsbruck, Copenhagen Business School, and Palacky University in Olomouc. The Alliance has a number of associate partners, four of which are universities in Central and Eastern Europe.

Aurora President Prof David Richardson said: “I’m extremely delighted with this news. Universities are here to serve society, and therefore they have to be socially inclusive. Aurora is a socially inclusive network with exciting ideas on how to deliver relevant inclusive curricula for the future.”

Aurora Board member and Vrije Universiteit President Mirjam van Praag shares her gratitude as the Aurora Alliance receives the European Universities Alliance Grant. She says that the Aurora Alliance can now start building programs based on social entrepreneurship and apply it to societal relevant topics.

Callum Perry, President of the Aurora Student Council, finds Aurora to be remarkable and is honoured to be part of such a grand network of students and staff. The crux of Aurora lies in that Aurora doesn’t ask what society can do for universities, but what universities can do for societies. Please watch his video testimonial below:

We are looking forward to implementing and executing our strategy in the coming months to kick off the Aurora Alliance Programme.

For further information please contact Aurora Program Director Sabine Allain Sainte-Rose: s.allain-sainterose@vu.nl

Cooperation between URV and Mozambique in the area of malnutrition

Written by rostanetek on . Posted in News.

The Erasmus project forms part of the cooperation project between URV Solidària, the URV’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and the Infant Nutritional Support Centre on the island of Ibo.

The work begun by URV professor Maria Eugènia Vilella Nebot in Mozambique in 2007 to combat malnutrition on the island of Ibo has led to new forms of collaboration involving students and researchers from the Faculty of Medicine and Health. Through a project funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, these collaborations will pave the way for a new research line in malnutrition at the URV.

Specifically, until 2022, five Mozambique students will study at the URV to complete their Bachelor’s or Master’s theses as members of research groups, and a doctoral student from the URV will carry out fieldwork in Mozambique. There will also be an exchange of five professors and researchers between the URV and the Eduardo Mondlane University (Maputo) and Lúrio University (Nampula), who are also members of the project.

This Erasmus project will form part of another cooperation project by the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (with support from URV Solidària), which funds initiatives from the university community for cooperation in development. This initiative will enable two students of Nutrition from Lúrio University to carry out an internship and Bachelor’s Thesis at the Infant Nutritional Support Centre on the island of Ibo, accompanied by Maria Eugènia Vilella and two professors from the Lúrio University. It will also allow a student on the Interuniversity Master’s Degree in Nutrition and Metabolism run by the URV and the UB to complete their master’s thesis at this centre.

In the centre, the professors from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, M. Eugènia Vilella and Josep Ribalta, head of the Postgraduate and Doctoral School, with members of Lúrio University in Nampula, Mozambique.

A specialist in developing countries

The origins of these projects lie in the work of Professor Maria Eugènia Vilella Nebot, a specialist in nutrition in developing countries. In 2010 she created the Infant Nutritional Support Centre in Ibo, with the Ibo Foundation, for studying, providing training in and treating infant malnutrition on the island. The nutritional intervention was also subject of Vilella’s thesis, who managed to reduce rates of malnutrition in children under the age of five on the island of Ibo and to encourage their mothers to adopt healthy nutritional habits.

Generating knowledge is necessary for achieving these three tasks, hence the proposal for the URV to have a research line in malnutrition, which responds to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Objective of zero hunger. By analysing dietary habits and nutritional data in the population, researchers will be able to design and implement a specific and sustainable intervention for the population with supplements based on the foodstuffs from the area, which will been to be reinforced with nutritional education and the promotion of food safety and hygiene.

Sustainable Development at the University of Duisburg-Essen

Written by rostanetek on . Posted in News.

Long before the abundance of social and political attention had coined terms like climate crisis and flight shaming, students and staff at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) were already working systematically to build a sustainable university. UDE is a member of the Aurora University Network.

The “Sustainable Development at the University of Duisburg-Essen” report demonstrates how projects and people are shaping sustainable development at UDE. It covers the period 2014 to early 2020 and assigns the activities presented to the 17 goals for sustainable development of the United Nations.

The report is assembled by a team of the university’s internal project “Sustainable UDE – Designing a Sustainability Process (napro)” with the support of numerous university actors from all status groups. The napro team presents proposals for action in the areas of research, teaching, operation, social responsibility, transfer, networks and engagement. Access the report by clicking the button below.

 

Project coordination, text and editing: Prof. Dr. André Niemann, Ilka Roose, Elisa Gansel, Laura Briese
Contact: nachhaltigkeit@uni-due.de

 

Aurora becomes Endorsing Partner Network of the SDG Accord

Written by rostanetek on . Posted in News.

The Aurora Sustainability Group has identified the SDG Accord, an initiative of the Global Alliance, as a light-touch way for Aurora members to show their commitment to the SDGs and report on their work regarding the SDGs.

The SDG Accord is administered by the Environmental Association for Universities & Colleges [EAUC] and endorsed by the UN’s HE Sustainability Initiative.

The SDG Accord invites institutions to sign up (at the most senior level) to a series of commitments around the SDGs and, as part of those commitments, to compile a light touch report. Those reports are aggregated annually across the global HE/FE sector and presented to the UN. They demonstrate the scale of the impact of tertiary education against the SDGs. As of May 2019, over 110 institutions from 80+ countries had officially signed. The Board acknowledges that Aurora institutions are all at different places in their SDG journey.

We believe that signing the SDG Accord provides a clear, unambiguous baseline commitment that we should all be able to support. Therefore, we invite you to sign the Accord as a shared, collective and demonstrable public commitment to the SDGs. Meanwhile, as a sign of support, we have become an Endorsing Partner Network.  The University of Aberdeen, the University of East Anglia, the University of Naples Federico II, the University of  Rovira i Virgili, University of Innsbruck and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam have all signed the Accord.

Simultaneously, the Aurora Student Council has requested the Aurora Board that the member universities of the Aurora Universities Network declare a climate emergency.