Addition of a preface to teaching staff assessment criteria
This preface was drawn up in order to underline the specific characteristics and functions of the teaching staff accreditation processes carried out by AQU Catalunya, which are based on accrediting a minimum indicative threshold for research activity quality and experience.
The Research Assessment Committee (CAR) continues to progress in adapting the actions of the different areas' specific assessment committees to the principles of the San Francisco Declaration, which AQU Catalunya joined at the CAR's prompting.
In this regard, the Committee felt a preamble needed to be incorporated into the assessment criteria, one that would underline the characteristics and functions of the accreditation processes carried out by the CAR specific committees. Above all, these committees are entrusted with the task of ensuring that the research activity of applicants is above a minimum indicative threshold in terms of quality and experience:
The new preface is as follows:
AQU Catalunya is a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and is aware of the recommendations proposed in the Leiden Manifesto and supports it.
The task entrusted to the CAR, which it undertakes by means of specific committees made up of specialists in the respective fields, is to accredit whether the applicants satisfy a minimum threshold of quality and experience in research activities that, among other functions, allows them to take part in calls for applications at universities in the Catalan university system. In no case do the accreditations serve to assess the scientific activity itself, or the possible suitability for a post in a university, nor are they to establish rankings or listings of people or to award scholarships or research grants; all these tasks are the responsibility of the universities themselves or of other institutions, by means of the mechanisms they establish within the current legal framework.
Thus, the following criteria are aimed at establishing whether the research activity of the applicants reaches the necessary threshold to receive the corresponding accreditation. Given this nature of accreditation, specific commissions establish quantitative indicators and are guided in part by proxy indicators. However, direct indications of quality, such as citations received by publications or other indications of proven quality, will also be taken into account. As a general criterion, the CAR has considered for years that the quality contrasted and demonstrated by objective and accepted means within each field of knowledge prevails over the quantity of publications. With this objective, it is important that applicants highlight indicators of the direct objective quality of their contributions.
The criteria and accreditation processes are defined and applied by the CAR specific assessment committees, which are made up of academics of recognised prestige who are well versed in the scientific field and context under assessment.