Students

Excellent Science in Horizon Europe – The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships

Written by Niels Hexspoor on 8. 7. 2021. Posted in Academics, CDS-Network, Events, Students.

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), part of Horizon Europe, and the European Union’s flagship funding programme for doctoral education and postdoctoral training of researchers, organizes many different actions and funding opportunities. Our Aurora partners at the University of Duisburg-Essen offer an information event and in which you will receive hands-on advice on how to write a successful MSCA fellowship application.

What to expect:

Monday: 12.07.21, 10:00 – 11:30 a.m.
• Presentation of facilities and services at the UDE, which are helpful during the application process but also after a successful project application (Science Support Centre, Graduate Centre Plus, International Office).

Tuesday: 13.07.21, 10:00 – 11:30 a.m.
• Information on the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships by a speaker of the EU Cooperation Office of the German Science Organisations (KoWi)

Thursday: 15.07.21, 10:00 – 12:00 (limited number of participants!)
• Field report of a successful applicant and exercises for successful proposal writing by a speaker of KoWi
In order to enable an individual and most fitting consultation, the exercises on Proposal Writing on 15.07.21 are only available to a limited number of participants. Early feedback on your participation is therefore recommended. The other parts of the event are open to all interested parties.

Please register via the following link:
https://eveeno.com/2021_ude_msca_postdoctoral-fellowships

Click here for the full programme (pdf).

Co-Creation Courses

Written by Niels Hexspoor on 30. 6. 2021. Posted in Academics, CDS-Network, Students.

Aurora and its universities offer a variety of different co-creation courses, open to students from all Aurora Partners. Consider enrolling, for example in the “Tools for Enterpreneurship” course at the University of Rovira i Virgilli, a course on International Service Learning at VU Amsterdam, or Project management in Social Work Practice at Palacky University Olomouc.

At the moment, a total of nine courses are available. For a full overview of the courses, the terms and the registration deadlines please take a look at this table.

Aurora Biannual: May 20th – May 21st

Written by Niels Hexspoor on 5. 5. 2021. Posted in Academics, CDS-Network, Events, Students.

It is time again for the Aurora Biannual! This community-building event, taking place twice a year, is the ideal opportunity to connect with Aurora colleagues from different universities.

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

Register here

The Aurora Spring 2021 Biannual commences with a plenary session featuring European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel (in a recorded address) and a panel discussion on the future of academic collaboration between British and other European universities following 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 an Aurora student representative (TBC). The panel will be moderated by John Style, Vice-Rector International of the University of Rovira i Virgili.

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

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 21^st, 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 in which 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.

For more information on the biannual, please take a look at the programme below:

Programme Aurora Biannual Spring 2021

Aurora COVID Student Conference – 14:00-17:00 BST, 7th May 2021

Written by Niels Hexspoor on 25. 4. 2021. Posted in Events, Students.

The University of East Anglia (UEA) are delighted to be hosting the second Aurora COVID Student Conference on 7^th May from 14:00-17:00 (BST). This is a free virtual conference for students from across all Aurora Universities to hear from, and engage with, experts working at Aurora partner institutions who have been active in responding to and researching the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Confirmed speakers are Prof Helena Gillespie and Prof Yoon Loke (UEA), Ingibjörg Magnúsdóttir and Anna Bára Unnarsdóttir (University of Iceland), with Dr. Kelly Edmunds and Prof Neil Ward (UEA) also available for questions.

This conference should be of particular interest to students who are interested in infectious diseases or who are considering a project or dissertation related to COVID-19. The conference will close with a discussion of the key themes that emerge during the plenary sessions. To register your interest in joining this free conference, please email Maria.Fox@uea.ac.uk before 13:00 May 7^th 2021.

Conference schedule

14:00 BST	Opening Remarks	Prof Neil Ward (UEA, Norwich)
14:10	Counting the harm from COVID – an inexact science	Prof Yoon Loke (UEA)
14:50	The Icelandic COVID-19 National Resilience Cohort – preliminary results for students.	Ingibjörg Magnúsdóttir and Anna Bára Unnarsdóttir (University of Iceland)
15:30	Break
15:45	Internationalisation and Study Abroad After Covid	Prof Helena Gillespie (UEA)
16:25	Conference Discussion / Questions from attendees	Chaired Prof Neil Ward
17:00	Conference Close

Forthem Alliance – Webinar: Shaping a Fairer World with Sustainable Development Goals

Written by Niels Hexspoor on 23. 4. 2021. Posted in Academics, Events, Students.

The FORTHEM Alliance, is one of the 42 European University Alliances, and like Aurora, places an emphasis on the SDGs. The FORTHEM Students are organizing the webinar Shaping a Fairer World with Sustainable Development Goals: Gender Equality (SDG 5) and Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8) FORTHEM student civic engagement project is inviting your students and staff to the discussion about sustainable economic growth, gender equality and decent work addressing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Students from the Aurora Alliance are very welcome to participate.

Webinar: Shaping a Fairer World with Sustainable Development Goals: Gender Equality (SDG 5) and Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8) organised by the FORTHEM Student Civic Engagement Project “Understanding Agenda 2030 – Only one decade left”

Topic: The webinar concentrates on the balance between economic growth and sustainability, as well as the need of reaching gender equality in the world. The webinar is a part of the webinar series “Understanding Agenda 2030 – Only one decade left”.

Date: April 27th, 17:00 (CEST) | 18:00 (UTC +3).

Registration: jyufi.zoom.us

The webinar is free of charge, available for everyone and organized in Zoom.

Organiser: FORTHEM Student Civic Engagement Project “Understanding Agenda 2030 – Only one decade left” initiated by UN Association of Jyväskylä, Estudiantes por la FdE Ética and ESN Palermo – Erasmus Student Network.

Find more information about the project and the event on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

The project is a part of the FORTHEM Societal involvement initiative supporting student teams in implementing volunteering and education projects for development, solidarity and awareness in collaboration with NGOs or other local and regional associations. Find more about the initiative and FORTHEM here.

2021 Spring School on Transferable Skills

Written by Niels Hexspoor on 19. 4. 2021. Posted in Academics, CDS-Network, Events, Students.

Are you interested in developing your professional skills? This may, our Aurora partners at the University of Naples Federico II offer a free online course, focused on developing skills in grant and CV writing, and how to get a faculty position. This program is open to all Master’s and Ph.d. students from within the Aurora Alliance, particularly those in a STEM-field (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathemathics).

The course will give an overview of the breadth of interviews that can be expected on your interview journey and will provide a space to practice interview questions. We will discuss team management and gender equality in academia and research and how improv games may improve your work-life.

This two-day Spring School will take place on Tuesday the 4th and Wednesday the 5th of May. Participation in this course will allow you to earn 2 ECTS-credits. For more information, please take a look at the Spring School’s website, or the flyer, containing the full program:

2021 Spring School on Transferable Skills Flyer

Interested in signing up? Please contact internationalfarmacia@unina.it, before May 1st.

Aurora Mini-Grants – List of awarded Mini-Grants

Written by Niels Hexspoor on 16. 4. 2021. Posted in Academics, CDS-Network, Students.

Friday, April 16, 2021 | After a very successful first call for applications, in which 27 applications were filed, the Aurora Central Office at Palacky University has finished its evaluation. It is our pleasure to announce the applications that will be awarded a Mini-Grant.

Out of the 27 applications, eighteen project applications were chosen to receive funding. In total, more than 1,6 Million Czech Crowns have been awarded in this first round. The funding of these projects paid directly from the Rectorate’s sources, will serve to further strengthen the Aurora Alliance, and will directly benefit these projects set up by our Academics.

This pilot phase of UP Aurora Mini-Grants received a wide range of applications, spanning several different fields, from five of our faculties and research centers. Below please find the list of funded projects:

Primary Investigator	Project Title
Barbora SITTOVÁ	Webinars on German grammar
David LIVINGSTONE	Promoting Mental Health among Students with Online Cultural Entertainment
Elona KRASNIQI	Evidencing online risks of youth’s mental health of those coming from state care, and foster care.
Filip KRAUS	Academic Networking on Researching Migration, Identities, and Sexualities in the Vietnamese Diaspora
František KRATOCHVÍL	Wordnets for low-resource languages: Creating a roadmap for using NLP technology to aid language documentation, description, and maintenance
Jaroslava KUBÁTOVÁ	Sustainable Social Enterprises
Lenka DZUROVÁ	Protein engineering in the collaboration with appropriate Aurora Partner Universities
Ľudmila LACKOVÁ	Aurorization of the course Complex Analysis of Text and Communication Process
Lukáš ZÁMEČNÍK HADWIGER	Theory of Digital Humanities
Martin SOUKUP	Colonialism in 21st Century
Michal PEPRNÍK	Sharing expertise in English studies: Ph.D. workshops and international conference
Miroslav KOPECKÝ	Active aging – a healthy lifestyle
Pavel ZAHRÁDKA	Remix Culture in the Music Industry
Pavlína FLAJŠAROVÁ	Aurora-Shared Interdisciplinary Series of Lectures on Cultural Diversity
Peter TAVEL	Starting shot
Petra VACULÍKOVÁ	Cradle for Excellence in Social Sciences and Humanities (CROSS)
Silvie VÁLKOVÁ	Bringing Academic Writing courses in English up-to-date
Tereza MOTALOVÁ	Galileo for Open Science: Network of Stewards and Navigation Interface for the World of Open Science (“OS Galileo”)

Ordered alphabetically, based on the first name of the PI.

The applicants were asked to specify whether their project dealt with Education, Research, and/or Professionalization, with most proposals concentrating on either Education or research.

The applicants were also asked to disclose the partner and associate partners named and included in the proposal. The University of Innsbruck and our associate partners from Kosice proved to be the most frequent collaborators.

In line with the overall vision and aims of the Aurora Alliance, applicants were asked to tie their proposals to one or several Aurora Pilot Domains.

The Sustainable Development Goals also hold an important position in all of Aurora’s endeavors. The applicants were asked to pick at least one of the SDGs and demonstrate how their proposal contributes to that goal. SDG 4: Quality Education and SGD 17: Partnership for the Goals were chosen most often, with SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being proving popular as well.

The UP Aurora Office looks back on a promising, successful pilot phase for its Mini-Grant scheme. We are looking forward to further developing the scheme for future calls, and above all, we look forward to seeing these Mini-Grants contribute to the excellent international projects our Academics will carry out!

A complete overview of the programs and the participating Academics can be found here: List of Funded UP Aurora minigrants (pdf).

Join an Aurora Short Program or Summer School

Written by Niels Hexspoor on 13. 4. 2021. Posted in Events, Featured, Students.

Ready to make the most of your summer? Want to study in another part of Europe?

Learn a new skill, develop new knowledge to enhance your degree studies and graduate prospects?

All Aurora university students have the benefit of learning what’s on offer this summer at other Aurora universities, through this one-stop-shop of your Aurora options this summer*. From Global Health to International Criminal Justice and from Central Europe and European Integration to Global Transitional Sociology, there’s a range of subjects to suit everyone, and in many cases, special discounts are provided for students from other Aurora universities.

So what are you waiting for?

Click the button below to access the summer school courses, find out more, check dates and deadlines, and find out how to apply.

Summer Schools

Would you like to be kept updated with Aurora university’s short courses and summer schools and associated funding opportunities? Please register your interest by completing this short form. You can also use the form to ask questions that we can direct to the appropriate Aurora university.

We hope you will be able to take the opportunity to study abroad at another Aurora university during your degree!

*Please note that some dates are to be confirmed and delivery modes may change due to unforeseen circumstances. Please get in touch directly with the hosting university for final details.

Report on Aurora Mini-Grant Scheme

Written by Niels Hexspoor on 13. 4. 2021. Posted in Academics, CDS-Network, Students.

Tuesday, April 13, 2021 | After a very successful first call for applications, in which 27 applications were filed, the Aurora Central Office at Palacky University has finished its evaluation.

The project applications and project evaluations are currently being reviewed by the Vice-Deans for internationalization, at their request, with the final outcomes expected by the end of this week. The selected projects are to be funded by the Palacky University Rectorate.

This pilot phase of UP Aurora Mini-Grants received a wide range of applications, spanning several different fields, from five of our faculties.

The applicants were asked to specify whether their project dealt with Education, Research, and/or Professionalization, with most proposals concentrating on either Education or research.

In line with the overall vision and aims of the Aurora Alliance, applicants were asked to tie their proposals to one or several Aurora Pilot Domains.