Aurora

About

Aurora is Advance HE's leadership development initiative for women. It is run as a unique partnership bringing together leadership experts and higher education institutions to take positive action to address the under-representation of women in leadership positions in the sector. Since its launch in 2013 more than 7,000 women from nearly 200 different institutions across the UK and Ireland have participated in Aurora.

Aurora is for women, up to senior lecturer level or the professional services equivalent, working in a university, college or related organisation who would like to develop and explore issues relating to leadership roles and responsibilities.

MIC supports female staff to undertake the Aurora programme and to develop the leadership skills and networks of female staff (Action 5.3.9, MIC Athena SWAN Action Plan).

Keep an eye out for emails from the office of EDII seeking expression of interests from staff for the programme.

Aurora Dates

Aurora Dates & Content

The 2023/24 programme will be delivered online, dates below:

2024

Thursday 14 March: Action Learning Set 2 - delegates self-host
Tuesday 5 March: Your Future in Higher Education - Dublin
Thursday 25 January: Adaptive Leadership Skills online

2023

Wednesday, 11 October: Intro Webinar - online
Friday, 20 October: Identity, Impact and Voice - online
Friday, 17 November: Core Leadership Skills - online
Tuesday, 28 November: Action Learning Set 1 - online
Thursday, 14 December: Politics and Influence - online

The Aurora programme is a mix of development days and action learning sets. Participants will be asked to:

Attend the introduction webinar which will introduce the aims and objectives of Aurora along with an inspirational guest speaker
Attend each of the four development days, and the two action learning set days
Undertake self-directed learning throughout Aurora, aligned with development interests
Commit to working with a mentor
Be prepared to access leadership opportunities and champion for change

If you would like to participate, please complete the expression of interest form here. (Deadline for expression of interest has passed)

Aurora Alumni Events

Aurora Alumni Graduates Presentation

We celebrated our Aurora alumni graduates with a presentation of their Aurora certificates and badges to participants on the 2020/21 and 2021/2022 cohorts. Mentors joined us for the event. Past participants and mentors shared their experiences of the programme and answered questions from those interested in pursuing the course in the future.