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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
On October 27th -29th, the 7th Biannual of the Aurora Universities Network was organized by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam at the Griffioen and the university campus. The nine Aurora universities discussed the future of the Aurora Network and specifically the proposed Aurora European Universities Alliance.
This Aurora European Universities programme will be part of the EU funded European Universities initiative which aims to revolutionize the quality and competitiveness of European Higher Education. The biannual consisted of a plenary, a general council meeting, 11 parallel Aurora working groups spread across two days; and also a social program.
During the plenary session, VU associate professor Nana de Graaf interviewed some leaders of key groups in Aurora: on the students’ activities (Elisabet Brynjarsdottir), the Sustainability group (Tavis Potts) and the Diversity group (Karen van Oudenhoven-van der Zee) as well as the groups of vice-rectors for education (Neil Ward), and research (Jon Atli Benediktsson).
At the second part of the plenary session, some tips of the veil of the Aurora Alliance proposal were unveiled and discussed, yielding relevant input on what is currently lacking within the network and how the Aurora Alliance can create an environment including a study experience, career opportunities that Aurora might bring and that is not presently there.
The Biannual saw the third Diversity and Equality award being won by Inserlab during an informal reception at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
The working groups continued on the second day of the biannual. The students, as well as the Aurora communications officers, spread out over the working groups to learn and experience the intergroup dynamics. The day ended with a lunch and an inspiring farewell speech from Aurora Board member and VU Amsterdam President Mirjam van Praag at the new homely and green study space on the second floor of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. This study space is a co-created by the University Library (UBVU) and students to experiment with furniture, decoration, and furnishing.
Next Aurora Biannual: Reykjavik, May 2020 (dates to be announced).
Please view the video and pictures below to re-experience the Amsterdam Aurora Biannual.
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