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Aurora

Aurora

Aurora is Advance HE's leadership development initiative for women. It is run as a unique partnership bringing together leadership experts, higher education providers and research institutes to take positive action to address the under-representation of women in leadership positions in the sector.

Join our "Becoming an Aurora Mentor" workshops

For 2022-23 we have extended the number of Becoming an Aurora Mentor workshops to 6 cohorts, each consisting of two half-day virtual workshops. We are now also able to provide an in-house mentoring programme.

View mentor workshops information sheet

Since its launch in 2013 more than 8,300 women from nearly 200 different institutions across the UK and Ireland have participated in Aurora.

Led by a team of leadership experts, participants will explore four key areas associated with leadership success: Identity, Impact & Voice, Core Leadership, Politics & Influence and Adaptive Leadership Skills.

Share and celebrate your achievements with digitally recognised learning

Programme participants' learning will be digitally recognised.

For much of our portfolio for 2022-23 the learning of event attendees and programme participants and conference, symposia and colloquia presenters will be digitally recognised.

This makes it easy for you to share and celebrate your achievements by adding them to your email signature or including them in your social profiles including Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Your learning certificates can also be easily verified and downloaded as a pdf.

Find out more about digitally recognised learning

Aurora has had a huge impact for Brunel. It has highlighted our commitment to gender equality and ensuring women have the opportunity to apply for more senior positions in the organisation and that we want them to stay, grow and develop with us. Aurora has helped our participants to maximise their talents and develop leadership skills and acumen. Several have succeeded in advancing their careers, either through promotion or by attaining new leadership roles."

Brunel University London.

How does Aurora work?

With a number of cohorts running regionally online, the Aurora programme is a mix of development days and action learning sets. Participants are also supported by mentors from their institution.

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 who is provided by their institution
  • be prepared to access leadership opportunities and champion for change.
Find out more about how Aurora works
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Aurora 2022-23 cohort dates

All bookings on Aurora must be made through or with the permission of your institutions Aurora Champion. You can find your institution's champion through our Aurora champion directory.

View the Aurora champion directory
Download Resource

Aurora 2022-23 cohort dates and prices

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Aurora and your institution

Institutions are responsible for coordinating Aurora within their organisation, providing mentors for their participants and supporting participants to attend the development days and their action learning sets. In each institution, Aurora is led by an Aurora champion

Find out more

Aurora - The Longitudinal Study

Our five-year longitudinal study of Aurora participants tracks the careers and aspirations of women working in higher education.

Read more

Aurora case studies and related stories