ShareAQU Catalunya holds its first training session for external assessment committees to assess doctoral schools
The Agency's External Assessment Committees (CAE) will soon visit the doctoral schools of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Technical University of Catalonia and Pompeu Fabra University to certify their internal quality assurance systems (IQAS).
AQU Catalunya held its first training session on Thursday for External Assessment Committees (CAE) that certify the internal quality assurance systems (IQAS) of doctoral schools. The 12 members of the CAEs were trained by members of the Agency in the procedure they will have to follow when they soon visit the doctoral schools of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Technical University of Catalonia and Pompeu Fabra University.
Currently, the Catalan Higher Education System has around 260 doctoral degrees taught by a dozen schools. As of 2021, doctoral schools must have renewed the accreditation of at least half of their official doctoral degrees and have their IQAS implementation certified in order to obtain institutional accreditation. When institutional accreditation is obtained, university institutions will be able to subsequently accredit all the official university degrees taught at the centre for a renewable period of six years.
The IQAS certification awarded to these centres demonstrates that they have ensured the adequate functioning of, at least, the mechanisms of action that form part of the processes of verification, monitoring, modification and accreditation of qualifications that ensure their continuous enhancement. In other words, IQAS certification aims to verify that the system is implemented and deployed at the centre responsible for the teaching of the degrees under its scope and that it is adequate for ensuring the quality of these degrees.
As set out in the procedure approved by the Institutional and Programme Committee in December 2023, the IQAS implementation certification process begins with a pre-visit, the purpose of which is to analyse the key aspects and decide on the relevance of continuing the IQAS certification process under the terms initially planned. Subsequently, the CAE carries out a certification on-site visit to the centre to see the degree of IQAS implementation and operation and its capacity to guarantee the quality of the education and training. Following the visit, the CAE submits the preliminary external assessment report to the Specific Institutional Assessment Committee (CEAI) ) which in turn issues the certification report.