on a permanent or open-ended contract or has a fixed-term contract with an end date after the end date of the programme (i.e., date of last session).

Here are the dates of the Aurora 2024/25 cohort programme activities. Activities have been split into a list of mandatory activities, followed by a list of optional activities.

Agency workers, contractors, and ScotGEM General Clinical Mentors are not eligible to apply to join the St Andrews cohort of the AdvanceHE Aurora Leadership Programme.

To help you make contact with previous participants in the programme, below is a list of participants from the two previous years that the programme has run.

The Aurora Leadership Programme is a 12-month long programme combining instructor-led development activities, self-directed learning, action learning sets, and mentoring designed to develop participants in leadership skills. The programme consists of the following elements:

Once the application window has closed, the applications will be collated and reviewed by a panel. This panel is convened by the Vice-Principal (People and Diversity) and will include colleagues from Organisational and Staff Development Services and at least one Aurora Champion.

Participants are required to attend all four development days and both action learning set days. Participants who are unable to participate in scheduled activity dates due to unforeseen, exceptional circumstances, may be granted a deferral to the following year. This will be at the discretion of AdvanceHE, if authorised by OSDS.

The University will reimburse programme participants for travel and subsistence expenses incurred from attending in-person programme events and activities that are compliant with the University’s Travel Policy and Expenses Policy respectively. Travel and subsistence expenses are funded from the participant’s school or unit cost centre.

Please make sure that you have read and checked your availability to attend all of the mandatory sessions before submitting an application.

Once the application form has been submitted, the applicant’s line manager will be contacted to provide a statement endorsing the application. Applicants must note that applications will not be considered without endorsement from their line manager.

The Aurora programme consists of seven, interlinked developmental activity days with additional self-directed learning throughout the programme. Participants will join the Scottish cohort by default for their development activities throughout the programme. In the event that a participant is foreseeably unable to attend one or more activity dates for the Scottish cohort, them may request to be allocated to another cohort with different scheduled activity dates, with sufficient notice and subject to availability.

Given the considerable commitment for the participants in terms of time and resource to participant in the programme, there is an expectation on the participant’s line manager to support their colleague in fully participating in the programme.

It is recommended that participants block out the whole day for each development activity day to allow time for completion of any pre-work before each session, and reflection on learning at the end of each session.

The Aurora Leadership Programme is a prestigious and competitive development programme that bears a considerable funding cost for the University. As such, participants are expected to commit to the full programme.

The University pays £1,100 per placement (as of 2024) in the programme. This is centrally funded from the University’s employee professional development budget and is paid by OSDS. Individuals and their respective schools or units are not required to reimburse this cost to OSDS.

Under UK legislation and the Scottish Specific Duties (2012) resulting from the Equality Act (2010), it is lawful to take positive action to address under representation and minimise workplace disadvantage.

Aurora is AdvanceHE's leadership development initiative for women to their develop leadership and networking skills. It is run by AdvanceHE 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. Since 2014, the University has been supporting women from across the University develop themselves and advance in their leadership journey through the Aurora programme and is include in the University’s Athena Swan Action Plan for addressing gender inequality.

Previous applicants for the programme have had the benefit of speaking to previous participants to ask about their experience and understand whether the programme is right for them.

The Aurora programme is an externally run development initiative created by AdvanceHE, a member-led charity of and for the Higher Education sector that works with partners across the globe to improve higher education for employees, students, and society.

The AdvanceHE run development activities will take place between October and March. The mentoring provision of the programme will run from November for a 12-month period.