ShareAQU Catalunya publishes the actions carried out by the CAR and the CAIP to advance gender equality
The Agency’s two evaluation commissions have each set out, in their own report, the actions they have carried out since 2015 to introduce a gender perspective within their respective areas of responsibility.
AQU Catalunya has progressively introduced a gender perspective across all its activities since the approval, in 2015, of Act 17/2015 on the effective equality of women and men. The improvement actions in this area carried out since then by the Agency’s two evaluation commissions, the Research Evaluation Commission (CAR) and the Institutional and Programme Review Commission (CAIP), have now been compiled in two reports prepared by these commissions, which review all the actions undertaken to comply with the Act and to advance gender equality between women and men.
The CAR report identifies AQU Catalunya’s adherence to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and to the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) as catalysts for its actions in the field of gender equality. In the text, the CAR lists a total of eight actions. The first is the inclusion in its procedures of ad hoc sections in curricula to identify sensitive situations, enabling applicants to indicate circumstances requiring special consideration in terms of equality. Secondly, it highlights the adaptation of the criteria for permanent teaching staff positions (associate professors and full professors), which explicitly incorporate consideration of diverse professional trajectories resulting from work–life balance.
Thirdly, the report points to the agreement of the Research Evaluation Commission on measures to ensure equality and work–life balance in the evaluation of teaching and research staff. The reference to interruptions in professional careers in the 2025 research period evaluation procedure, the inclusion of non-binary identity and chosen names in teaching activity certification/evaluation documentation, the inclusion of the Gender and academic staff accreditation section on the AQU Catalunya website, the preparation of the Report on the state of the Research Evaluation Commission and the specific commissions in terms of parity, and the planned preparation of training materials for the Agency’s experts on gender perspective are the elements that conclude the CAR report.
For its part, the CAIP report highlights the drafting and approval, in 2018, of the General framework for the incorporation of a gender perspective in university teaching, which aims to establish guidelines to support the incorporation of a gender perspective in teaching. In addition, CAIP has progressively introduced elements and criteria into the various evaluation guidelines in accordance with the requirements of current equality legislation. The report then refers to the Framework for the improvement of institutional quality in the Catalan university system (QUALINS Framework) —approved in April 2025— as an element aligned with new international trends and therefore aimed at building an inclusive European Higher Education Area that guarantees gender equality. In this regard, the text states that the QUALINS Framework establishes that external quality assurance processes must take respect for diversity into account and must promote development objectives, explicitly including effective equality between women and men.
Subsequently, the CAIP report details that AQU Catalunya has incorporated a gender perspective into its institutional and programme evaluation methodologies in application of current legislation. Specifically, this has been done in relation to the verification and modification of official degree programmes; the accreditation of official degree programmes; and the institutional accreditation of university centres. Finally, the CAIP report also notes that both the commission itself and the other bodies that depend on it (the specific commissions and the external review panels) have currently achieved gender parity among their members.
