How we work
The Aurora 2030 project has 10 work packages (WPs) containing 33 activities. In the diagram, all activities are listed, and the activities led or co-led by UP are highlighted.
WP1: Project Management
One of the technical work packages, the first work package aims to both ensure sound management and coordination of the overall Aurora’s workplan as well as optimally support the institutional development of the Alliance as described in the context of the Aurora 2030 vision.
Project Management
This task includes the coordination of the implementation of the Aurora Work Plan and ensures sound management of overall resources and capacity towards the achievement of all set deliverables. T
UP Contact:
Selma Porobic
Quality Assurance
Concerned with project quality assurance, this task monitors the quality of the produced deliverables by setting up and implementing a quality management plan.
UP Contact:
Niels Hexspoor
Sustainability of the Alliance: Aurora 2030+
This task aims to secure the sustainability of the Aurora Alliance by analysing and securing the various conditions required for Aurora cooperation to continue beyond 2030.
UP Contact:
Niels Hexspoor
WP2: Transdisciplinary European Research-Driven Educational Hubs
This WP aims to influence societal change by developing communities of learners, researchers and stakeholders that jointly want to become change-makers on the basis of active and inclusive, student-centred, and research- and innovation-driven learning and teaching in higher education.
Establishing the Hub for Sustainability & Climate Change
The specific duty of this task will be the development of flexible learning paths that create a holistic understanding of “Sustainability & Climate Change”, expanding on ecological or economic interpretations to understand complex societal problems in various ecosystems.
UP Contact:
Miroslav Syrovatka
Establishing the Hub for Digital Society &Global Citizenship
The specific goal of this task is the development and implementation of four Master level courses of 10 ECTS each in the field of Digital Society and Global Citizenship. These Activities will be alligned with the implementation of the EURIDICE-project.
Establishing the Hub for Health & Well-Being
This aims team for the development of a set of educational offerings in the transdisciplinary field of Health & Wellbeing , delivering, among others, a transdisciplinary seasonal school at PhD level focusing on topics such as advanced therapies, Mediterranean diet, etc.
Establishing the Hub for Culture: Identities and Diversities
This task has the transversal duty to advise on and document the formation of the transdisciplinary European research-driven educational hubs.
UP Contact:
Pavlina Flajsarova
Coordination of joint education and joint accreditation
Besides its contribution to the transversal duty of establishing guidelines for setting up micro-credentials in Aurora, it is the specific duty of this task to assess the possible formats for education that are most appropriate for the separate and joint educational activities as developed in Education Hubs.
WP3: Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation
This WP will foster teaching and learning for societal impact with special emphasis on entrepreneurial skills and mindsets. Thisimplies that students, teachers and researchers are prepared for engagement with and within society while aiming to have societal impact.
Deliver Courses on Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation
This Task will be dedicated to, on the one hand, deepening the integration of the continued
offer of developed innovative pedagogies for courses within the Aurora Alliance and, on the
other hand, developing new applications for teaching and learning for societal impact.
UP Contact:
Ondrej Krocil
Measure the SEISMIC competency development
Participating universities will use the SEISMIC survey tool to measure pre/post competency development. These surveys will be administered in three fields: Firstly, the specific WP3.1 SEISMIC courses; secondly, the educational interventions in other WPs; thirdly, measuring the development of SEIMIC competencies in specific study programs ranging from start to end of studies.
UP Contacts:
Ondrej Krocil,
David Kosina
Virtual ecosystem to foster social entrepreneurship
The entrepreneurial ecosystem will be fostered by creating an Aurora virtual community driving social entrepreneurship and innovation. Therefore, an annual SEISMIC award will be granted to the best ideas developed by students and staff.
Aurora Regional Ecosystems and Stakeholders
Participating universities will co-engage with mayors of the cities, regional industry representatives, business chambers, NGOs and social change incubators (e.g. such as Impact Hubs) in activities related to the Sustainability & Climate Change, Digital Society & Global Citizenship, Health & Well-Being, Culture: Identities & Identities, and Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation.
UP Contacts:
Michal Malacka,
Pavla Simackova
WP4: Teaching and Learning for Societal Impac
Challenge-based Cocreation, Service learning and Life long learning
This task aims to make co-creation a generally accepted embedded practice with academics skilled in co-creation as a technique.
UP Contact:
Natasa Matulayova
Education for Sustainable Development
In this Task we will aim at creating awareness of the uses for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in education by inventorying, developing and transferring knowledge on how Aurora teachers and staff can integrate sustainability into its educational provision.
UP Contact:
Maxim Tomoszek
South-South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) in research and education
SSTC promotes synergies between South-South and North–South cooperation initiatives. It serves as a bridge towards the development of sustainable partnerships which are mutually beneficial among partners in both the Global South and North.
UP Contact:
Nuria de Diego Sanchez,
Lukas Spichal
WP5: Enhancing Quality of Research through an Aurora Research and Innovation Community
Towards Reforming Research Assessment
In this task, we will capitalise on Aurora’s members’ activities that partake in the COARA (Coalition on Advancing Research Assessment) initiative to reform research assessment. We aim to share participants’ experiences of conducting a bottom-up reform of research assessment procedures and criteria in their institution.
UP Contact:
Marie Jadrnickova
Academic collaboration and community building
In this Task we will aim to encourage academic collaboration and create an Aurora research community, we propose as key actions: Fristly, common calls for incentive and collaborative research projects; seconldy, specific actions for early stage researchers, such as short term research secondments; thirdly thematic schools and training modules.
UP Contact:
Marie Jadrnickova
Support and Infrastructure for Open Science
In this Task, we will lay the foundation for monitoring and evaluation of Open Science practices bydeveloping an Aurora Research Information Infrastructure through OpenAIRE. Besides, we will worktowards building and strengthening Aurora research support communities by providing training on Open Science services and practices.
UP Contact:
Marie Jadrnickova
WP6: Green and Digital Campus
The overall goal of WP6 Green and Digital Campus is to support the establishment of a Aurora Alliance inter-university campus through advancing our IT and sustainability capacities
Aurora IT Development & Services
Through the expansion of EU standards for online authentication and authorization to access digital services – e.g. for registration and access to Learning Management System – this task will deliver onshared interoperability among the partner institutions (organisational, legal, semantic and technical).
UP Contact:
David Skoupil
Aurora Sustainable Campus
This Task will ensure that the shared Aurora infrastructure is as sustainable as possible in terms of environmental impact, and that the Aurora partners work towards lowering their carbon footprint, and on implementing other sustainability measures at their campuses.
UP Contact:
Zuzana Hunkova
WP7: Capacity Building and Community Engagement
Led by UP, the overall goal of WP7 is to upscale co-engagement of student community across Aurora universities by formalising the student coordination and student program implementation as well as to reach out to associated partner universities in Central Eastern Europe by strategic mainstreaming of the Capacity Development Program, with particular focus on regional peace building capacity and outreach programme to the local community in Ukraine.
Coordination of Student Support Services and Engagement
This task will be dedicated to guaranteeing and strengthening student (administrative) support services and ensuring comprehensive student engagement opportunities through formalising student participation within Aurora.
UP Contacts:
Niels Hexspoor
Development of Aurora Student Community
In this Task, we will aim to ensure the further development of an Aurora Student Community. Building on the Aurora Student Schemes, which started as a spontaneous programme for student participation in Aurora, this Task is concerned with the full development and implementation of the Aurora Student Ambassador Programme.
UP Contacts:
Martin Mach
Niels Hexspoor
Implementation of Capacity Development Programme in CEE
This Task will focus on upscaling the Aurora Capacity Development Program to a full-fledged and strategic capacity building scheme through deepened strategic cooperation with four Associated Partner Universities: Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice (Slovakia), South-West University Neofit Rilski (Bulgaria), University of Tetovo (North Macedonia) and V.N Karazin Kharkiv University (Ukraine).
UP Contacts:
Selma Porobic
Creation of Karazin University Peace Education HUB
As a part of Aurora Alliance response to the war in Ukraine, this Task team will work towards building a Peace Education Hub at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv University
UP Contact:
Gabriella Capec
Selma Porobic
WP8: Enabling Mobility and Exchange
The overall goal of WP8 Enabling Mobility and Exchange is to conduct joint planning, piloting, testing, and sharing of experiences and good practices and to equip students and staff with international learning experiences. This WP will build upon the work done in the first phase of the Aurora alliance, which included moving towards recognition of mobility opportunities and identifying mobility obstacles.
Increase Mobility and Standardise Procedures
In this task we will focus on increasing mobility opportunities for university staff (academics and admin) and students by offering varied and innovative mobility formats. In order to ensure that learners with fewer opportunities can participate in Aurora mobility activities we will also consider the needs of underrepresented groups in the mobility offerings.
Internationalisation at Home
This Task will focus on the access and tools needed for the development of Internationalisation at Home (IaH) key programmes and activities.
Internationalisation of Institutional Cultures
This Task will focus on building an international institutional culture throughout the Aurora Alliance. This will include different level trainings and capacity building activities to raise awareness on the importance of internationalisation as a means to more quality education and research, and ultimately to better societies.
WP9: Aurora Governance
The overall goal of WP9 Aurora Governance consists of assessing the progress, outcomes, transformational potential and impact of the Aurora alliance. It includes setting up structures and procedures from an alliance-wide perspective to ensure deep level cooperation between the partners and work towards a sustainable alliance.
Governance Structures
The governance structures as described in WP1 reflect the foundational elements of the governance structures that have been applied during the first three years of the Aurora Alliance, in combination with the lessons learned over that period of time. However, to make the Aurora governance future proof for at least the duration of the next four to six years, this Task will focus on developing an updated governance structure in collaboration with all our partners to optimise the content development and decision-making processes.
Quality Education and Impact
This Task will focus on developing a Quality Education Assurance (QEA) evaluation system geared towards assessing the societal impact of Aurora European University.
UP Contact:
Hana Maresova
Aurora Values
Aurora has a strong focus on its values and identity, at the core of which lie the Aurora ambitions to achieve true sustainability, change-making and social transformation (in Aurora, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I) are particularly important with respect to social transformation).
WP10: Impact and Dissemination
The overall goal of WP10 Impact and Dissemination is to achieve the widest possible dissemination of all Aurora activities by the end of the bid. This will be done by advancing a multi-level dissemination strategy that will build upon the solid groundwork set in the first bid.
Aurora Communication and Dissemination
In this Task we will aim to further develop the Aurora communication and dissemination strategies, policies and measures. This will ensure that the Aurora brand will further solidified and recognizability will be increased.
UP Contacts:
Niels Hexspoor
Michal Zych
Science and Society
This Task will aim to involve society in research and innovation activities and to share with scientific and local communities the best and innovative practices in learning new contents and skills, including lifelong learning.
UP Contact:
Marie Jadrnickova
Holistic and Strategic Approach for Impact
Aurora aims to strategically communicate, promote and disseminate all of its scientific, economic, technological, and societal benefits to their external stakeholders. The overall objective of this task is to foster, manage and monitor the impact of this phase of Aurora.
UP Contact:
Niels Hexspoor
