Aurore (internet platform)

Aurore is a Sino-French community portal for science and university cooperation. It was created in 2009 by the Offices for Science and University of the Consulate-general of France in Shanghai, in partnership with the French Academy of Sciences. The Portal was inaugurated on May 21, 2010 at the French pavilion of the Shanghai Expo 2010.

Presentation
Aurore is an exchange platform created to bring together scientific research stakeholders. It is also an interactive database for Sino-French cooperation in research and higher education. The Portal has been developed in partnership with the French Academy of Sciences. It covers the fields of sciences, technology, social sciences, and humanities. The portal is available without cost and allows all the stakeholders involved in scientific research to register, identify appropriate partners, and set up cooperative activities.

Aurore's aim is to gather information on the cooperative activities of stakeholders, institutions, programs and research projects in France and China, in the field of science and technology. The platform also encourages the researchers to make contact and gather into thematic working groups or communities of practice. In the long term, Aurore aspires to become the display window of research and scientific cooperation between China and France. Numerous researchers, belonging to the highest institutions and schools in France (CNRS, Inserm, Académie des Sciences, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Paristech, INRIA, Institut Pasteur, IRD, INRA...) have already joined the platform.

Goals
The platform, which covers the fields of sciences, technologies, social sciences and humanities, has three main functions.

Information

Aurore allows the identification of appropriate partners and the setting up of new cooperative activities, thanks to the network of research and teaching institutions in France and China. The Portal also gathers information on cooperative projects, participating institutions and researchers. Finally, Aurore provides a lot of useful information such as calendars of scientific events, calls for proposal announcements and availability of scholarships.

Communication

Aurore aims to improve exchanges between French and Chinese researchers by publishing news about research and cooperation. The portal is also a true community network that is sustained by its members’ contribution.

Cooperation

Aurore helps initiate contacts, animate research groups, and communicate more actively on projects. This platform aims to encourage researchers to build contacts and create thematic working groups.

Interface
Aurore is a Sino-French bilingual portal, that gathers the following subsections:

News

This new tab gathers news about Sino-French research, in order to highlight the current cooperative activity. It is made up of four sections. The Agenda section provides information about events related to scientific news ; the Channel section presents profiles of famous figures in scientific research. The News section refers to scientific articles published by institutions and research organizations. Finally, the members’ papers section refers to the database of all the articles published by members.

Members

This tab provides an inventory of all the members registered on the platform, and allows users to have access to their respective profiles including membername, research field and specialty, institution, and contact information.

'Establishments'

This tab presents the registered institutions (address, detailed structure, fields of excellence, etc.). The establishments are registered according to two criteria: geography (national and local origin), and type (university, research institute, hospital).

Co-operations

This tab describes the cooperative projects, and the associated members and institutions.

Groups

This tab facilitates exchanges between scientific communities by creating and animating working groups and discussion groups. It truly illustrates the forum function of the portal.

Partnerships
The platform also relies on a network of partners :


 * French Academy of Sciences.
 * Canal Académie
 * Campus France
 * Institut français