ShareAQU Catalunya publishes the first quarterly newsletter of 2025
Articles in issue 116 of El Butlletí cover topics such as the opportunities provided by the University Quality Assurance Act (LOSU) for quality agencies to develop institutional accreditation or the new criteria for evaluating university teaching staff, which AQU Catalunya will publish on 5 February.
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AQU Catalunya has today published its first newsletter of 2025, issue number 116. There is an editorial by the president of the Agency, Francesc Xavier Grau Vidal, in which he emphasises how the Organic Law of the University System (LOSU) opens up opportunities to promote institutional accreditation. Among other things, he argues that institutional accreditation (currently for centres but in future also for universities) should cover everything that the LOSU establishes as "necessary elements of university activity". Grau cites the "quality of teaching, but also of research activity, the suitability of teaching and research staff, and also of organisation, resource allocation and the relationship with society" as examples.
El Butlletí, a quarterly newsletter published since 1999, also featured an article by Esteve Arboix Codina, secretary of the Research Assessment Commission (CAR), outlining the new criteria for the accreditation of university teaching staff, to be published on Wednesday 5 February. After pointing out that "the CAR subscribes to the view that the assessment of the activity of teaching and research staff should be approached in a different way" to the one currently in force, Arboix lists the main new features of the criteria, such as the fact that the assessment will be based "on three main dimensions: research and transfer, university teaching and scientific and management leadership (only for professors)". Accordingly, "the teaching dimension to the logic of accreditation" has been incorporated into this area, which "until now has been exclusively for research (associate professorship) and advanced research (full professorship)".
This issue of El Butlletí, the last one before the Saló de l'Ensenyament education fair, sets out the main features of the EUC Informes portal, which is a tool available free of charge on the web so that future students can check the quality of the qualifications they want to study. Continuing with the students in the leading role, the project manager in the Quality Assessment Department and secretary of the Student Committee of AQU Catalunya, Albert Gili Moreno, has written an article that delves into the characteristics of the Student Report, a formula by which AQU Catalunya incorporates the voice of the student body in the evaluation of the centres. “The report is designed as a document drawn up, approved and issued by the students with independence from the management teams of the centres and the university. "Its content gathers the opinion and satisfaction of the student body regarding the assessed aspects," said Gili.
Finally, the general coordinator of the Catalan University Student Council (CEUCAT), Pau Maza Díaz, gives an assessment of what the Student Report represents. According to Maza, the report "represents a significant step forward in the participation of the student community" because "for the first time they have the opportunity to contribute in a structured and meaningful way to the evaluation of our qualifications and centres". Both Gili's text and Maza's assessment are accompanied by an interview with student Paula Gelpí, author of the first Student report that has been prepared.
You can read issue 116 of El Butlletí here, and find back the previous bulletins published by AQU Catalunya here.