ShareAQU Catalunya’s Institutional and Programme Review Commission holds its first meeting of 2025
During the session, a new member of the CAIP was introduced, the results of the 2025 satisfaction surveys were presented, and the QUALINS Framework was unveiled.
The AQU Catalunya Institutional and Programme Review Commission (CAIP) held its first meeting of 2025 on Wednesday. At the meeting, after approving the minutes of the previous meeting, held in December 2024, the Commission’s chair and director of AQU Catalunya, Jaume Valls Pasola, presented his report to the other members.
The Chairperson’s Report focused on issues such as the status of the assessment processes underway for the current calls for applications and the planning of the Agency’s external visits for 2026. For example, AQU Catalunya has scheduled around fifty external visits for the assessment of qualifications. Valls also explained the current situation regarding the update of the teacher assessment methodology and provided new information on the development of benchmarks, including those for Medicine and Education.
The chair of the CAIP then provided the Commission’s members with information concerning teaching staff. Specifically, he detailed the particularities of the new criteria for accrediting associate professors and full professors, which the Agency has been applying since 1 April and which are the result of applying the LOSU to the pre-existing criteria. Additionally, Valls reported on the creation of a working group that will examine how artificial intelligence is likely to impact university quality assessment. The chair of the CAIP also updated the commission’s members on the forthcoming studies being carried out by the Agency: the Employer Survey, the Recent Graduate Satisfaction Survey and the Employment Outcomes Survey, which is still in its early stages.
To conclude, Valls spoke about the latest conference organised by AQU Catalunya, which focused on the European Approach and took place online on 29 April. He also announced that the next event organised by the Agency would take place on 18 June and focus on disseminating the labour market’s views on the education offered by universities in Catalonia.
After the presentation of the Chairperson’s Report, the CAIP members were informed about the draft royal decree amending Royal Decree 640/2021 of 27 July, on the creation, recognition and authorisation of universities and university centres and the institutional accreditation of university centres, and other related regulations. Subsequently, the results of AQU Catalunya’s 2025 satisfaction surveys were presented, and the new Framework for Improving the Institutional Quality of the Catalan Higher Education System (QUALINS Framework) was introduced. Lastly, the rules of procedure of the Institutional and Programme Review Commission were approved.