Between November 15th and 18th, a UP delegation visited our partners at the University of Rovira i Virgili, to participate in the Aurora Autumn Biannual in Tarrgona, Spain. The biannual was a great success and an excellent opportunity to meet in person and strengthen the ties with all of our partners.
The Biannual combined plenary sessions with intensive workgroup and management meetings. The absolute highlight of the event was the signing of the Multilateral Aurora Mobility Agreement. This agreement opens up many new mobility possibilities for both students and staff, between all Aurora Universities.
The momentous Multilateral Aurora Mobility Agreement was signed by UP Rector Martin Prochazka.
During the Biannual, the Aurora top-management met twice, during the Aurora Presidents’ Strategic session and the Aurora Council meeting. During these meetings, the Presidents and Institutional Coordinators of all Aurora institutions came together to discuss the progress so far, as well as the next steps and the road ahead. The ICs also met on Monday the 15th in preparation for the two Aurora top-management meetings on the following days.
The plenary sessions covered topics such as the inclusion of soft skills and SDG-perspective in the teaching of Aurora Universities through the use of the Aurora Competence Framework, as well as approaches and opportunities to internationalization of the curriculum. Featured were several highlevel debates, with prominent keynote speakers such as Xavier Prats Monné, the former Director-General for Education and Culture of the European Comission.
The voice of students was given center stage during the event. In the weekend before the start of the biannual,
The agreement was signed by dignitaries of all Aurora Universities.
students for all Aurora Universities gathered in Tarragona early to participate in the Aurora Student’s Design Thinking Jam, and give their input on what the Aurora Universities can do to facilitate meaningful international experiences for their students.
The outcomes of this session, ranging from the need for Aurora Student Events to mental health support and tackling issues with inclusivity were presented to the Aurora community during the biannual by the students themselves. Palacky University was excellently represented by four its students from four different faculties: Hanus Patera (FF), Dominik Vorac (PdF), Serge Nengali (PF), and Dominik Hlubek (PrF).
On the 18th of November, a dedicated Kick-off for the Aurora Research & Innovation program took place. During the kick-off the leaders of the various Aurora RI activities got together to present their activities and the way forward, identifying the where and how to collaborate most efficiently.
A full overview of the presented materials, as well as photos and videos taken at the event can be found below:
A part of the UP delegation.The UP delegation, together with the University of Innsbruck‘s delegation.The Aurora Research & Innovation activity leaders.
On Wednesday the 8th of December, Kees Kouwenaar will visit Palacky University Olomouc to provide a staff training session on the Aurora Competence Framework. During this comprehensive session for educators, you will learn more about how to include soft skills in your courses and programs.
Equipping students not only with the subject knowledge and skills but also with the proficiencies and mindsets to address societal challenges is one of the key objectives of Aurora’s Educational programme – Learning for Societal Impact.
The Aurora Competences Training Workshop will show teaching staff how to easily integrate general academic and personal competences into the learning outcomes of their existing courses and modules. The Workshop will also familiarise the teaching staff of the Aurora universities and their associate partner universities with the intersection of these with the role of the SDG perspective in their teaching.
This training session is organized by the Aurora Capacity Delevopment Support (CDS) Team, as one of their planned CDS-Awareness Raising Events, which play a central role in strengthening the capacity of the Aurora associate partner universities in key innovative domains of internationalization and social engagement. As such, the session is open to our associate partners as well as local UP teachers.
NB: Due to Covid 19 measures, we are able to host only 20 people. This will impact the number of selected applicants for the in-person training. In the selection, we will prioritise Aurora associate partner universities. Face-to-face training will be followed by a networking day for the associate partner participants on 09/12/2021.
Learner Analytics is a developing area for universities – but it is not always clear what is meant by the term. This session will cover key aspects such as skills needed, technology required, the data that may be used, as well as practical implementation and ethical issues.
The purpose of this event is to give those working in a university environment an understanding of the main aspects, challenges and benefits of a Learner Analytics project. It will also aim to facilitate networking between those interested in this area.
Please send an expression of interest to Lucy Mellor at: L.Mellor@uea.ac.uk to allow us to organise the practical part of the session and to communicate with participants before the event. Deadline for registration is 16:00 GMT on Friday 19th November 2021 and participation is free of charge.
Join the session through this Teams-link on Thursday 25th of November 2021, 14:00-16:00 GMT (15:00 – 17:00 Central European Time).
There are many competing diagnoses and characterisations of contemporary societies: as capitalist, open, postmodern, transnational or polarised and divided. This Spring School aims to question such simplistic diagnoses and to analyse which, partly competing, partly complementary, ideas and hypotheses are hidden behind these labels. We want to understand which positionings and power relations are expressed in the various characterisations of contemporary societies and, based on this, question what is supposed to hold contemporary societies together – and whether it needs to be held together at all. In three panels we aim to investigate specifically how the humanistic ideals of public spirit and community, openness, and tolerance shape and are being shaped, striven for, as well as negotiated and contested by contemporary society. In addition, this Spring School features a performative societal laboratory, where we aim to generate a different, embodied and performative type of knowledge about the themes of the Spring School.
The Spring School will take place in Duisburg, Germany in March 28th to April 1st 2022 and offers the opportunity to discuss recent advances in related research areas with highly regarded scholars in and invites students to present their related research agenda or outputs in three different and topically structured panels. Also we invite all participants to participate in an artistic performance with the aim to facilitate and foster reflection through collective action. The Spring School features panels on “Sense of Community in Transnational Societies,” “Cosmopolitanism and the post-developmental critique of open societies,” and “Politics of identity and cultures of (in-)tolerance.”
Registration requirements:
Please submit a brief CV (max. 1 page), an abstract on your doctoral research (max. 500 words), a motivation for your application (max. 250 words), an indication of preference of panel workshops (please indicate your priorities) and an indication of choice for the performative-participatory laboratory. The deadline for submissions is 10th of January 2022. Cost of registration is €400, including tuition, accommodation and meals.
Taking place on the 6th and 7th of December at the University of Naples, Federico II, in this two-day hackathon we invite you to co-create conceptual solutions for rethinking the Mediterranean food economy, departing from the concept of the Mediterranean diet.
Man-made climate change, species extinction and other environmental factors linked to the condition of the Anthropocene will radically alter the conditions for food production and consumption in the coming decades. Indeed, the effects of these developments are already visible as farmers all over the world are faced with rising insecurity and unpredictability that derive from new weather, temperature and humidity patterns. At the same time, the food economy is changing: there is a new inflow of highly skilled, university-educated neo-rurals who bring with them novel conceptions of entrepreneurship and management; digital technologies- from drones and precision agriculture, via blockchains, down to ‘simple’ e-commerce sites- empower food production and distribution in new ways; and there is a re-discovery of ‘traditional’ foods and production techniques along with a novel appreciation of forgotten tastes and aesthetics.
How to empower alternative forms of production and consumption that are both productive and resilient? How will the Mediterranean diet itself change (through, for example, the introduction of formerly ‘tropical’ produce, like mangoes and avocados, that now grow in Southern Italy)? How to guarantee worker rights and ensure proper remuneration in a rural economy marked by a powerful role of informal economic networks as well as persisting structural racism? Further information can be found here.
Registration process and requirements: Applicants must send a one-page CV to afi.soedarsono@societing by 30 November 2021. Participation in the Hackathon is free of charge.
On October 18th, the Aurora Office of the Palacky University in Olomouc organized an Open Day event for the University faculties. Rector Martin Prochazka opened the event and welcomed the participants, reminding us all how significant it is to acknowledge the event being the first larger physical gathering after the COVID phase at our University, and also a first physical gathering for Aurora participants and the interested parties since the start of the Aurora European Universities Alliance programme, in November 2020.
Rector further emphasized how UP together with 8 other European universities in Aurora has pledged to transform higher education by modernizing our institutions to meet the societal challenges, and how proud he is to continue this important work of our University in the Alliance of European Universities, building a strong European future together.
Under his leadership, we will work to strengthen UP’s position within the Aurora as well as to use this strategic partnership and international cooperation to advance the results and quality of our university. As he invited for joint collaboration he also stated that “To achieve the best results, we need to work together. We will make sure that Aurora benefits faculties and provides the best services and resources to the academic community and our students.”
After the opening remarks by the UP Rector, Selma Porobic, the Aurora Institutional Coordinator at UP, provided a full overview of the European Universities Initiative and its positioning in the policy context of European higher education. She introduced the Aurora Alliance and achievements of the collaboration after the current 1-year progress reporting.
She pointed to a noteworthy increase in strategic and cross-regional EU partnerships addressing the widespread trans-national issues, like climate change, reduction of poverty, social injustice and inequalities, and the new technologies that are rapidly changing our work conditions and everyday lives. [1] In the EU’s higher education sector, the most significant has indeed been the strategic partnerships scheme, launched by European Commission (EC) as European Universities Initiative, under the Erasmus Plus Framework Programme.
It is considered as one of the leading initiatives of the EU’s ambitions to build a European Education Area by supporting the creation of universities of the future, promoting European values and identity, and revolutionizing the quality and competitiveness of European higher education.[2] After two calls only, already 41 university alliances are formed, joining together 279 higher education institutions in Europe and its neighboring countries.[3]
Dr. Porobic also introduced the work of Aurora Alliance and the joint management and governance model with impressive results, and a record of growing academic collaboration among academics of 9 universities. Furthermore, she introduced the new leadership model introduced at UP as of October, which places the Aurora programme under the Vice-rector for Strategy and provides important Strategic coordination of the work and results. She also introduced the Aurora Office at UP with services for the faculties.
In the following panel ‘European Universities and UP – Strategy and Future’ the Strategic management of the Aurora programme at UP was presented in detail by Vice-rector for Strategy Michal Malacka, stressing the embedding of Aurora programme deliverables into the existent governance structures supporting the realization of the UP Strategic goals 2021-2027. Dr. Malacka moderated the panel in which Vicerectors Education, Vit Zouhar, Communication, and Student Affairs, Vit Prochazka, and IT, evaluation and Sustainability, Tomas Opatrny all presented their work packages (WP3,4,5) and alignment with UP strategic goals in their respective sectors.
The next panel ‘What we do in Aurora’ consisted of the UP Activity leaders, Marie Jadrnickova, Marie Rakova, Tereza Kalouskova, Niels Hexspoor, promoting the concrete results in the International traineeships, Research Collaboration, Sustainable Campus, and the Capacity Development Support programme. Introduction to Aurora student schemes, ambassadors and champions, was also part of this panel.
In the afternoon, the panel Education and Mobility in Aurora, focused on the four pilot domain areas: Climate and Environmental Sustainability, Health and Wellbeing, Digital Society and Global Citizenships, Culture: Identity and diversity. Aurora partners are testing the educational collaboration in these and the panel representatives from four different UP faculties (Science faculty, arts faculty, Education Faculty and Health sciences) presented the results of this work so far with the current offers of joint lecture series, courses and upcoming joint degree programmes to the audience. At the same time the developing UP Aurora mobility schemes for students and staff were introduced, along with the Multilateral Aurora Mobility Agreement (to be signed during the Aurora Biannual in November) that will enable the increase of mobility exchanges across the 9 university partners.
The event was finalized with Open Questions and Answers, with the UP aurora office. Next on the agenda are separate Faculty visits and Aurora open day for students in spring 2022.
The day after on October 19th the Aurora project team had a long-time promised Teambuilding Event at Chateau Lednice.
The Co-creation Training Workshop which will be held on February 3rd to 5th, 2022 at the Athena Institute, Vrije University Amsterdam (VUA), the Netherlands, will provide a platform for Co-creation experts, practitioners, interested researchers and educators, Ph.D. students, and community partners to discuss and share knowledge and experiences on co-creation practices aimed towards connecting science and society. The main aims of the event are as follows:
Facilitate sharing of ideas and experiences on co-creation (best practices, pitfalls, innovations)
Connect co-creation experts, practitioners, students, and community partners from around the world
Build an engaged community of co-creation practitioners
Foster co-creation practices in research and education within and beyond the AURORA alliance
We may not have had the opportunity to visit all ten of the other universities, nor indeed those countries, but in the five years since Aurora began, how well do we really know our Aurora partners?
We’re all research-intensive with an international outlook, collectively supporting our students to become global entrepreneurs. But could you list the home country of each partner? Its academic strengths? Its research collaborations?
The Borderless Learning: Recognition and Mobility Group (WP3.3.1) is hosting a week-long series of webinars from November 2nd to 5th, aiming to answer questions from the very basic level – why would a student choose to study there – from its campus and location, to its courses, to its inclusive community. Each Aurora university will take just 60 minutes, all following a similar structure and format, to showcase itself to other Aurora universities.
Whether you’re a student, an administrative adviser or coordinator of placements, or an academic looking to strengthen your European partnerships; tune in (or watch the recordings) to find out more. You could just turn out to be learning about your next destination.
Get To Know Your Aurora University Study Abroad Partner Destinations – A Webinar Series for students and staff
Are you on a study abroad pathway? Interested in studying a short course abroad? Keen to experience living and learning in another part of Europe? Or helping to advise those that are? Join as many of these eleven webinars as you like! All will be live streamed and recorded for follow-up access.
In these times of climate change, pandemic, forced migration and increasing economic and political alienation, crisis talk is ubiquitous. While the world’s problems are unquestionably urgent, the current discourse of emergency risks aggravating them by privileging quick but ineffective reaction over the calm, reflexive analysis that is a necessary first step in combatting the woes besetting us.
The objective of this lecture series is to provide an antidote to impulsive disaster talk through perceptive academic analysis. Outstanding researchers within the Aurora University Alliance will give engaging online lectures during the 2021–2022 academic year on cutting edge research within two broad domains, Sustainability & Climate Change and Culture: Diversity & Identity
Each lecture will be followed by a virtual social hour for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers which will allow them to network with peers across the Aurora Alliance and start building the research teams that will deal with the challenges of the future.
13 October 2021, 17:00–18:30 CET
Circular innovation and sustainable entrepreneurship
Prof. Dr. Ir. Bart Bossink (Sustainability and Innovation, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
27 October 2021, 17:00–18:30 CET
Ignorance, ritual, abuse, and competition: The politics of Holocaust memory in the 21st century
Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Dirk Rupnow (History, University of Innsbruck)
NOVEMBER
11 November 2021, 17:00–18:30 CET
Have you ever loved someone without housing? Houselessness and fundamental rights in a welfare state
Dr. Luisa Schneider (Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
18 November 2021, 17:00–18:30 CET
Insect declines in the Anthropocene: Framing is everything
Prof. Dr. Jeff Harvey (Animal Ecology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
– WINTER BREAK –
FEBRUARY
16 February 2022, 17:00–18:30 CET
Historical and literary perspectives on pandemics: The need for a gendered response
Prof. Dr. Patricia Plummer (Postcolonial Studies, University of Duisburg-Essen)
17 February 2022, 17:00–18:30 CET
Places to intervene in a system in crisis: Paradigm shift through Wellbeing Economy and Ecocide Law
Prof. Kristín Vala Ragnarsdóttir (Sustainability, University of Iceland)
MARCH
23 March 2022, 17:00–18:30 CET
Measuring sustainability
Doc. Mgr. Miroslav Syrovátka (Development & Environmental Studies, Palacký University Olomouc)
24 March 2022, 17:00–18:30 CET
Is there something new in ‘neo-nationalism’? Right-wing populism in historical perspective
Prof. Guðmundur Hálfdánarson (History, University of Iceland)
APRIL
7 April 2022, 17:00–18:30 CET
The importance of early climate mitigation for future glacier change
Dr. Fabien Maussion (Atmospheric and Cryospheric Sciences, University of Innsbruck)
19 April 2022, 17:00–18:30 CET
Decolonial approaches to laïcité as a mode to re-think contemporary Islamophobia
Prof. Nadia Kiwan (French and Francophone Studies, University of Aberdeen)
The lectures will take place on Zoom and the networking sessions on the interactive Wonder platform.You can register for individual dates or the
entire series. You will receive a certificate for your participation.
The Department of Economic and Managerial Studies, Palacký University Olomouc would like to invite you to the 17th anniversary of the conference KNOWCON 2021:Knowledge on Economics and Management that will be held online on November 11-12, 2021. The conference is open to all students from within the Aurora universities free of charge.
International scientific conference KNOWCON: Knowledge on Economics and Management has been held since 2005 (before 2019 as Knowledge for Market Use) and its goal is to gather and present current knowledge on management, marketing, financial management, and other fields of knowledge economy. The conference proceedings of 2012-2017 have been indexed by WoS, the proceedings of 2018-2020 are being evaluated.
One of the panels of KNOWCON 2021 will be focused on social entrepreneurship with Kai Hockerts, social entrepreneurship specialist from Copenhagen Business School, as a keynote speaker with a special lecture. For more information please see https://kems.upol.cz/knowcon/
To register your interest in joining this free conference, please email Pavla Slavíčková at pavla.slavickova@upol.cz stating your name and University before November 1st 2021. You will receive a link to the conference thereafter.
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
