AQU Catalunya publishes its annual CAR report
Today, the Agency has published a report detailing the activities carried out by the Research Assessment Commission throughout 2024.

AQU Catalunya has today published the Report on the Activities of the Research Assessment Commission (CAR) in 2024. The purpose of the document is to inform AQU Catalunya’s Governing Board about the work undertaken by the Research Assessment Commission (CAR) over the past year. The text, drafted by AQU Catalunya’s Teaching Staff Assessment Unit (APR), focuses on quantitative issues such as the resolutions handed down in the calls for accreditation and research merits that take place each year, in addition to providing information about other non-routine activities. For example, the development of the new criteria for teacher accreditation to bring the process into line with the new regulatory framework established by the Organic Law on the University System (LOSU).
With regard to the preparation of the new criteria, the CAR’s report highlights, firstly, the creation of a working group to draft the document, which was subsequently approved by the CAR. This group comprised the chairpersons of the CAR’s specific commissions, the CAR’s chair and technical staff from the Agency. Secondly, the public consultation process, which was open to the entire Catalan Higher Education System in September 2024, collected more than 170 individual and collective contributions and led to improvements to the initial proposal.
Thirdly, it notes the input from institutions like the University Teaching Policy Commission and the Committee for Academic Personnel of the Interuniversity Council of Catalonia, as well as from trade unions like the CCOO and the UGT, all of which were consulted by AQU Catalunya. Lastly, the CAR highlights the formal approval of the document, with the general criteria being approved in June 2024 and the revised general criteria and specific criteria approved in January 2025.
In terms of the specific initiatives implemented in 2024, the CAR report focuses on other activities, such as the approval of the agreement to uphold equality and work-life balance in the assessment of teaching and research staff. It also highlights the consolidation of the system of open calls for accreditation and participation in the Plan to Strengthen the Catalan Language in the University and Research System of Catalonia, which has resulted in the inclusion of an explicit reference to linguistic pluralism in the new accreditation criteria.
With regard to the CAR’s annually recurring activities, the report provides information on the various calls for proposals. In terms of accreditations, it summarises the CAR’s activities between 2003 and 2024. Since 2003, the Research Assessment Commission has carried out 100 calls for the issue of research and advanced research accreditations. In total, 15,067 applications were received. 72.64% were for research accreditation and 27.36% were for advanced research accreditation. With regard to non-permanent teaching staff hired under the Serra Húnter Plan, the CAR explains in the report that the 2024 call for applications remained open throughout the year and that 56 applications were received. Of these, 27 were deemed suitable, four were deemed unsuitable, 21 were closed without assessment, and four are still being assessed.
On the assessment of six-year research quality premiums, the CAR’s report notes that in 2024, a call for applications for the recognition and assessment of research merits was issued for civil servant teaching and research staff and that 487 applications were submitted, representing an increase of approximately 10.2% compared to the previous year. In regard to non-civil servant teaching and research staff, the report explains that 1,230 applications were received in 2024, approximately 10.4% more than in 2023. In addition, 72 applications for recognition were submitted.
The CAR, chaired by Maria Pau Ginebra Molins, a full professor at the Technical University of Catalunya (UPC), is responsible for issuing research and advanced research accreditations, assessing the activity carried out by researchers and the individual research merits of teaching and research staff, both civil servant and contracted, for the award of salary supplements, in addition to assessing the research activity of teaching and research staff at private universities. The CAR carries out its activities through specific commissions responsible for issuing the relevant reports for the recruitment of tenure-eligible lecturers and for the accreditation of research and advanced research in different fields of knowledge.
You can consult the other activities carried out by the CAR at this link.