A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya

88

January 2018

While keeping in mind the political context that, to a limited extent, is affecting AQU Catalunya, our intention is to carry through as far as possible with the Action Plan endorsed by the Agency's Governing Board for 2018.

Our main priority is the quality assurance procedures that are the Agency's core activities. In this regard, new developments to be introduced in 2018 are:

• Ex-ante accreditation (validation): the timetable for reviews has been modified (April-November) to ensure that the provision of programmes that will be definitely offered is available and released by the start of the Education Fair (Saló de l’Ensenyament).
• Accreditation: start of the accreditation of doctoral programmes, as well as bachelor degree programmes in the Performing and Visual Arts. This will involve work on producing reports based on the available indicators that are required in the programme accreditation procedures.
• Quality assurance of teaching staff: introduction of the automatic notification of decisions for E-Notum assessment reports, which should speed up the procedure and subsequent communication.

In addition, we will continue to create added value for the university system in Catalonia. For this, impetus will be given to:

• The transition into employment of graduates: publication of the report with the findings of the survey of the employment outcomes of Master's graduates; and uploading of the data and figures from the survey of doctorate holders and Master's graduates to the EUC database.
• Employers survey: carrying out of the field work for the second survey of employers regarding their perceptions of the employability and skills of recent graduates in Catalonia, and to provide the universities with information to improve academic provision that better matches the requirements of the labour market.
• Satisfaction survey: the aggregate results over three years for bachelor's degrees are to be presented in a report.
• Via Universitària survey: technical supervision will be provided for this survey promoted by the Vives Network of Universities.

In the midst of all these activities we will also need to endorse AQU Catalunya's updated Code of Ethics; draw up the Strategic Plan for 2019-2022; and make progress on a new updated design for the website, which is already nearly ten years old.

This is our wish list, but the important thing is not just to tick off each item, but the way in which each one is carried out. The commitment of the Agency's staff, together with that of all the experts who collaborate with AQU Catalunya to ensure the technical quality of the Agency's activities, is critical to their success and I can say that, as ever, we are sincerely grateful to them for their work and professionalism.

In times of uncertainty, and in order to act swiftly to deal with more immediate demands, it is easy to overlook important issues. The universities, as the main driver of knowledge and growth in society (and let's not forget it), deserve even more special attention right now in all of their dimensions as the commitment to enhancing the quality of the higher education system means investing in efforts in the present but, above all, in the future.