To meet the University's financial targets, we have made the difficult decision to reduce spending on some of our external leadership development programmes, including Aurora and Elevate. As you may be aware, we have been involved in Aurora since 2014 and Elevate since 2020. We will continue to sponsor annual cohorts of these programmes but on alternate years. For this academic year, 2024/25, we will sponsor an Elevate cohort but not an Aurora cohort. We are aware that this will be disappointing to many colleagues.
The invitation to apply for the 2025/26 Aurora cohort will be made next summer.
We remain committed to high quality and impactful leadership and management development and would encourage everyone to consider the range of learning opportunities available to all staff, which can be found on our Staff learning and development webpages (scroll down to Leadership & Management). We also offer The University of Bath coaching service for staff which may be a suitable approach to address your career development. — Richard Brooks, Director of HR
Aurora leadership and development programme
Invitations to apply for the Aurora Leadership and Development Programme for the 2025/26 cohort will open next summer.
Programme update
An update regarding the sponsorship of the Aurora programme.
The programme
Aurora is for women, up to Senior Lecturer level or the equivalent in Professional Services, who would like to develop the leadership side of their careers.
Aurora is higher education's most renowned leadership development initiative for women. Since its launch in 2013, more than 10,000 women from nearly 200 different institutions across the UK and Republic of Ireland have participated in Aurora. It is aimed at enabling more women to develop the leadership side of their careers and so redress the deficit in women at senior level in the sector. Aurora is a leadership ignition journey, inspiring women to aspire and achieve leadership positions within higher education.
The programme is led by a team of leadership experts and participants will explore four key areas associated with leadership success: Identity, Impact & Voice, Core Leadership, Politics & Influence and Adaptive Leadership Skills.
The programme is based on mentoring, self-directed learning and workshop events at which delegates from many institutions come together to hear from expert speakers and work on their own challenges. For 2023/24, the programme will be mainly online, with a face-to-face event and cohorts will be formed from institutions across a geographical region in order to build the networks that have been a valuable feature of the face-to-face events.
The University is committed to engage in the initiative and this year will be supporting 16 participants to attend the programme. There is a competitive application process for these places, which are available to women in job grades 7 to 9 in the Education and Research Job Family, and grades 7 to 8 in other job families.
Professor Linda Newnes is the University’s Aurora Sponsor and will lead the selection process. We are also committed to providing appropriate role models to take part in the scheduled events, and to helping the Aurora community get together to share learning and bring ideas and challenges back to the University.
Selection Panel Members:
- Linda Newnes (Chair)
- Kate Elliott (Champion)
- Amanda Harper
- Joanne Hinds
- Juani Swart
- Charles Larkin
- Edward Webster
Participants 2023-24:
- Clare Baxter
- Katherine Binks
- Jess Bower
- Jessica Carwardine
- Emma Fisher
- Astrid Forsyth
- Katrina Kelly
- Alice Lowe
- Elizabeth Marks
- Anita McGrogan
- Gemma Noyce
- Kully Rennie
- Liz Simmons
- Hannah van Buuren
- Verity Westcott
- Rachel Willis
Contact us
If you have any questions about the Aurora programme, please do get in touch.