Jón Atli elected President of the Aurora University Network

Jón Atli Benediktsson, Rector of the University of Iceland, has been elected President of the Aurora University Network and will lead the network for the next two years. He takes over from David Richardson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia.

The Autumn Aurora Biannual meeting took place online yesterday and today. The network comprises nine European universities, all of which excel in research and place major emphasis on social responsibility and student diversity. The Aurora Network also incorporates the UN Sustainable Development Goals into all its work. 

This new responsibility for Jón Atli hardly comes as a surprise, since the University of Iceland has played a leading role in the Network since it was established in 2016. "International collaboration is very important to us at the University of Iceland and we have benefited hugely from the Aurora Network over the past four years. I have sat on the board of the University Network for the past three years and look forward to chairing it for the next two years," says Jón Atli. "Collaboration between the universities is good and our connections with them will continue to strengthen the University of Iceland through new ideas and projects. The University of Iceland is the smallest university in the Network, with a total of around 300,000 students enrolled at these nine universities. For us to lead the Aurora Network strengthens our position even further in this regard. This is a huge honour, both for me and for the University of Iceland."  

Besides the University of Iceland, the Aurora Network consists of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands), the University of East Anglia (UK), the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany), the University of Innsbruck (Austria), the University of Naples Federico II (Italy), the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain), the University of Aberdeen (UK) and the Université Grenoble Alpes (France). 

Major opportunity for the University of Iceland

The Aurora collaboration was recently expanded under the name Aurora Alliance, with the involvement of Copenhagen Business School in Denmark and Palacký University (Czech Republic). The Aurora Alliance was recently chosen as one of the European Universities Alliances, which is an EU flagship programme in science and higher education. This means a large grant, up to EUR 7 million, from the European Union, to fund the project for the next three years. 

The role of the European University Alliance is to increase the competitiveness of European universities in a global context, strengthen collaboration between them, not least interdisciplinary collaboration, and promote the mobility of students and staff. It is wonderful for the University of Iceland to get the opportunity to take part in shaping the future of universities in Europe in close collaboration with other prestigious and dynamic universities. The leadership at the University of Iceland foresees unique opportunities in this collaboration, which will undoubtedly bring a lot of benefits for students and staff at the University and also for Icelandic society. 

This Autumn Aurora Biannual meeting was devoted in particular to the Aurora Alliance, which was officially launched at the meeting. A large group of staff and students from the University of Iceland took part in the virtual event and helped lay the foundations for the next steps in this important project.