Welcome to "Alfa Aurora"

Specific objectives

The AURORA network will establish a new line of academic education of international quality by working towards the following goals and perspectives. All activities are planned as joint network actions involving every partner university with regard to interchange of students and staff and contributions to the workshop series located in the Latin American universities resp. city with most urgent needs of expertise.

a) Exposing final year undergraduate students, postgraduates and younger assistants (working on the MSc- or PhD thesis) as well as experienced researchers to other systems of Higher Education to gain advanced subject-based knowledge/experience and widen their horizon of thinking and professional orientation. The international experience will enable them to act as multipliers and re-transfer professional background knowledge and good-practice to their home country. For the integration of the network it is also envisaged to include a number of exchanges of expertise and mobility among Latin American partners.

b) In order to establish a clearly defined subject-based frame for the training by mobility of students and staff, the network universities will establish a joint research collaboration strategy for sustainable urban development. This increases and guarantees the cohesion of the individual project work, of guest teaching and (re)training objectives as well as the practical relevance of the universities’ expertise and service advice for professional planners and architects. The communication and dissemination of results will be supported by an internet-based forum valuable for both university studies and professional use. To state quite clearly: the ALFA grant will only be used for the research-related training of students and staff but in no case for facilitating the research activities itself.

c) To develop modules for interdisciplinary university curricula and advanced training of Architects and Urban Planners and put these into practice as university studies to sustainable Urban Construction and Planning and by a series of intensive training modules (as workshop-seminars)- in Latin America for practical training and life-long learning of students, academic specialists and professionals. This joint improvement of curricula and running of workshops will result in further interactions between the participating institutions and creating new practically-relevant job opportunities for graduates and postgraduates. Thus the professional development and cooperation in the Latin Americas will significantly benefit from this project.

d) To develop a functioning system of continuing student exchange involving all necessary institutional flanking measures as credit transfer and accumulation, modularization of studies, academic recognition, exchange services for care, cultural and language preparation and hospitality.

e) To disseminate results and continue the collaboration and mobility activities beyond the scope of the institutional and temporary boundaries of the project. It is envisaged that the institutional development and integration of the network with regard to curriculum development, supporting measures and structures for exchange, or financial viability will be consolidated to enable the “sustainability” of the network itself.

f) For the coordination of the joint network research-based training strategy and facilitating access to objectives and methods of non-mobile or external students and professionals, the project will develop a “Virtual Information Exchange and Documentation Pool”. This interactive multimedia forum will be useful to promote the internet-based dimension of the learning and training approaches.