The Aurora programme

Aurora is a women-only leadership programme organised nationally by Advance HE, now in its ninth year and with over 7000 alumnae across higher education. 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.

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 2021/22, the programme will be entirely online, 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 15 participants to attend the programme. There is a competitive application process for these places, which are available to women in job grades 7-9 in the Education and Research Job Family, and grades 7-8 in other job families.

Professor Linda Newnes, is the University’s Aurora Champion 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.

Please click here to view the selection panel and previous participants of the Aurora programme.

Application process

Applications are now closed for 2021-2022 programme