ShareAQU Catalunya to make 54 external visits in 2024
The Agency's Governing Board met on Monday to approve next year's schedule of external visits. Included are 18 on-site visits to certify university centres' IQAS implementation.
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The AQU Catalonia Governing Board met for the 18th time on Monday, at which time they approved the schedule for the external visits that the Agency will have to carry out throughout 2024. The document, which details how many visits of each type will be made, lists a total of 54 external visits by AQU Catalunya to various centres spread throughout the country. Of these visits, 18 will be to certify the implementation of internal quality assurance systems (IQAS). An assessment of the similarities among the different IQAS will also be made.
In this sense, the work that the Agency has been carrying out since 2007 to help universities design the IQAS for their centres is of particular significance. The visits that AQU Catalunya carries out to certify the correct implementation of IQAS are an opportunity for
centres to request institutional accreditation, which allows them to automatically accredit all the official degree programmes a centre offers for a renewable period of five years.
In terms of institutional accreditation, the 2024 schedule approved by the Governing Board has AQU Catalunya starting with the accreditation of one centre and a pilot institutional accreditation process for three doctoral schools from three different universities. External visits to these four centres are scheduled for January 2025. Regarding degree programmes, the Agency has 31 visits planned to renew the accreditation of 18 bachelor's degrees, 13 university master's degrees and 2 doctoral programmes. In the field of higher arts education, 3 external visits will be organised. The number of visits scheduled for 2024 is approximately 16% lower than the total number of visits in 2023. This reduction is only in regard to institutional accreditation processes; the number of visits associated with internal quality assurance system certification is the same as in 2023.