17/06/2021
AQU Catalunya's Annual Activities and Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2020, now published in Spanish and English.
We highlight those initiatives that we believe could become strategic in the coming years:
- Strengthening the role of institutional accreditation. The Governing Board has approved the strengthening of institutional accreditation processes for the period 2022 to 2024. This momentum should allow for the complete transition of degree accreditation processes to institutions, and means that instead of visiting large institutions once a year, we will visit them once every five years, which will save resources on all sides. In 2020 the Agency has also approved the Standards and Criteria for Institutional Accreditation, which it will roll out with the corresponding assessment guidelines.
- Signing of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). The Governing Board, at the proposal of the President of the AQU Catalunya Research Assessment Committee and the President of AQU Catalunya, has approved support for the DORA. The Research Assessment Committee has reflected on and started to introduce elements aimed at incorporating the recommendations of DORA, such as removing the constraints on references and considering other datasets and bibliographies, and the consideration of other quality indicators such as the citations received by articles.
- Assessment of inter-university degrees in line with the European Approach. AQU Catalunya has approved two highly relevant documents in 2020. Firstly, the conditions for the recognition of joint programmes using the European Approach Framework and, secondly, the guidelines for the verification of inter-university programmes following the European Approach. These evaluations apply to inter-university programmes offered jointly by higher education institutions in two or more states, with the aim of simplifying the evaluation processes so that these degrees need only be evaluated in one of the states participating in the degree. In 2020, AQU Catalunya used this methodology in two degree programmes.
- Verification of short-term programmes. In 2020, the opportunity arose to include a new scenario that will create connections between higher education and vocational training. An Assessment Guide has been approved and a pilot project has been launched to assess short-term programmes that support continuous professional development and lifelong learning. The idea is that programmes that are given a favourable assessment based on this guide can be transferred to the Public Employment Service of Catalonia for inclusion in the Catalan Catalogue of Training Specialities.
Resumen de la Memoria de Actividades y Responsabilidad Social Corporativa de AQU Catalunya 2020
AQU Catalunya corporate social responsibility annual report 2020. Summarised version