A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya

91

October 2018

The 2017 Annual Report, approved by AQU Catalunya’s Governing Board, describes the Agency’s main activities during the aforementioned year.

The Annual Report incorporates and extends the Agency’s activities through the main areas of strategic thrust:

• Institutional quality. 139 accreditation reports were issued in 2017, and a total of 94 proposals for the ex-ante assessment of recognised degrees were submitted by HEIs in Catalonia during the year. As regard applications for the modification of programmes already introduced, 121 proposals were submitted. In relation to monitoring, AQU Catalunya issued 36 progress reports on learning providers (faculties and schools) that deliver 107 degree programmes. Subject benchmark statements for Computing and Tourism were approved and published. Work also began on producing benchmark statements for Economics and Business Administration. The Agency approved the Guide to the accreditation of arts higher education programmes, the Guide to the accreditation of recognised PhD programmes and the new version of the Guide to the Certification of IQAs Implementation.
• Quality assurance of teaching. 1.999 applications were submitted in the calls for applications from tenure-eligible lecturing staff and senior academic staff (associate professor and full professor staff), a 21% increase compared to 2016. In the call for applications for the assessment of merits in research of public service teaching and research staff at public universities and teaching and research staff at private universities and affiliated and partner schools and institutes, AQU Catalunya introduced a new procedure for the submission of applications, with changes to the way in which abbreviated CVs are to be submitted. Instead of attaching a PDF document, applicants can now just fill out an online form that automatically loads their submissions from the Research in Catalonia website (Portal de Recerca de Catalunya) via ORCID.
• Knowledge generation and transfer. The results and findings of the sixth survey of the employment outcomes of graduates of Bachelor, Master's and doctoral programmes at Catalan universities were presented. During 2017, work was carried out to bring to a close the first stage of the Employers project 2014-2017 and to start the first stage of the second project, covering the three-year period from 2017-2019. The third satisfaction survey of first degree graduates was started on 1 December 2017, together with the first Master's satisfaction survey of graduates who had completed a Master's degree in the 2016-2017 academic year.
• Internationalisation. AQU Catalunya continued hosting the Secretariat of the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE), being a full member of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) and continued to be listed in the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR). The Agency participated in 5 international projects during 2017 (TeSLA, LIREQA, DEQAR, EQTeL i PACAgro).
• Strategic management. The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) coordinated the external review of AQU Catalunya, which served as the basis for the ENQA Board and EQAR Committee to renew AQU Catalunya's full membership of ENQA and maintain its EQAR listing.
• Internal organisation. AQU Catalunya addressed key aspects of accountability and maintained updated the transparency portal.