What's Aurora about?
Originally formed in 2016, Aurora is a consortium of research intensive universities deeply committed to the social impact of their activities.
In November 2020, Aurora received a significant boost from the European Commission (EC), which chose the project under the Erasmus+ programme as one of 60 alliances of the European Universities Initiative that will take place until 2024. This initiative aims to equip students with a meaningful international experience through embedded mobilities while revolutionising the quality and competitiveness of European higher education.
Aurora 2030
On July 2023, it was announced that Aurora 2030, the second phase of the project, is being awarded a second round of funding. It is led by the University of Iceland and will receive 14.4 million euros for the next four years. The URV will manage part of the budget (1.22 million euros) and heads the work team in charge of promoting student and staff mobility and exchanges. The aim of this part of the project is to integrate internationalisation as a means of achieving higher quality education and research and, at the same time, to facilitate equal access to internationalisation.
What is the European Universities Inititative?
The EC's European Universities Initiative seeks to strengthen strategic partnerships across the EU between higher education institutions and encouraging the emergence by 2024 of some twenty 'European Universities', consisting in bottom-up networks of universities across the EU which will enable students to obtain a degree by combining studies in several EU countries and contribute to the international competitiveness of European universities.
Co-developed by higher education institutions, student organisations, Member States and the Commission, the European Universities Initiative responds to this call. Today, it is one of the flagship initiatives of the EU's ambitions to build a European Education Area.
Aurora Members
The Aurora Alliance comprises the Universitat Rovira i Virgili and eight other partner universities from the Netherlands (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Iceland (Háskóli Íslands); Germany (Universität Duisburg-Essen); Austria (Universität Innsbruck); Italy (Università degli Studi Di Napoli Federico II); Czech Republic (Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci), France (Université Paris-Est Créteil) and Denmark (Handelshøjskolen i København).
In this sense, Aurora is an inclusive network and also cooperates with other universities, our Associate Partners, through the Aurora Alliance Capacity Development Support Programme (CDS) which aims at reducing 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. Our Associate Partners are Pavol Jozef Šafárik University (Slovakia), V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Ukraine), South-West University "Neofit Rilski" (Bulgaria) and University of Tetova (North Macedonia).