With over 50 active participants, the first Aurora Staff Week was a complete success. The key topics of transformative education, innovation management, societal engagement and internationalisation were explored in depth over several days in various formats and settings. Best practices from the University of Innsbruck and the Aurora partner universities served as the basis for the exchange in order to enter into a mutual dialogue in the spirit of peer learning, which opens up space for creativity and new ideas.
"Personal encounters are incredibly important for a network like Aurora to be filled with life," emphasises Rector Veronika Sexl, who is responsible for International Affairs. "I am delighted that so many colleagues, both in-house and from the Aurora partner universities, have actively taken up the invitation to exchange ideas and that new ideas are already in the pipeline." The so-called "matchmaking sessions" were particularly fruitful, where concrete new activities, such as the development of joint courses, could be discussed on a smaller scale.
First Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) at the University of Innsbruck
The meeting in Innsbruck was preceded by a virtual exchange between the participants in September, as the Aurora Staff Week was funded and implemented as an Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) - incidentally for the first time for the University of Innsbruck as the organising institution. A virtual follow-up meeting at the end of October will also conclude the Aurora Staff Week.
The BIPs are teaching/learning elements that are jointly organised by several universities and combine virtual components with physical short-term mobility ("blended"). The BIPs are a new mobility format embedded in the Erasmus programme, which was implemented as part of the Erasmus programme generation 2021-2027. The general aim of the Aurora programme is to develop further joint BIPs between the Aurora partners in the coming years. These can be used for both training and teaching purposes.
Further information can be found here: https://www.uibk.ac.at/de/international-relations/mitarbeiterinnenmobilitaet/outgoing/mobilitaetsprogramme/erasmus-bip/.