SharePresentations from the webinar "Reflections on new international trends in teaching staff assessment" published
Last Wednesday afternoon, around 300 people followed the live streaming of the webinar "Reflections on new international trends in teaching staff assessment: what's next?", organised by AQU Catalunya.
The event opened up discussion on the reform of the system to assess teaching staff and the research they carry out. It is an issue that is currently subject to debate in the sector both inside and outside Catalonia and Spain, as it is a hot topic at European level.
The first possible new approaches to the assessment of teaching staff research were introduced by Josep M. Garrell, former rector of Ramon Llull University and member of the Board of the European University Association, who presented the priority actions of this association. In addition, Garrell pointed out how opportune it was to hold the seminar at this time, days after the foundation of the CoARA, an international coalition that seeks to ensure that the assessment of research, researchers, and research organisations recognises the diverse outcomes, practices, and activities that maximise the quality and impact of research. Garrell raised the question of whether the university professor should be evaluated for all the tasks they carry out or only for some of them. After posing the question, he recalled a phrase that, in his opinion, might just hold the answer: “Everything that is not evaluated is devalued”.
His presentation was followed by that of Christel Lutz, Director of Education at the University College of Utrecht, who presented the University of Utrecht'S TRIPLE model and explained the lessons learned and the next steps to follow that the model implies. In general terms, her presentation pointed out that the research group must be the starting point; that there must be investment in leadership; that the diversification of research profiles must be stimulated; that openness should be recognised and rewarded in all domains of assessment; and that quality should be rewarded over quantity in terms of research output, which she proposes to do by reducing the existing pressure to publish.
Subsequently, Enrique Orduña Malea, professor and academic secretary of the Department of Audiovisual Communication, Documentation and Art History of the Universitat Politècnica de València; Núria Bautista Puig, Post-doctoral assistant lecturer and researcher at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid; and Carmen Pérez Esparrells, associate professor of Economics and Public Finance at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, gave their presentation, "Evaluación de la investigación: ¿Hacia dónde queremos ir?" (Research assessment: What's next?). Acting as moderator was José Saturnino Martínez García, director of the Canarian Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ACCUEE). Each one presented their proposal for change, which they want to lead to a holistic, flexible, inclusive and scalable model. They then reviewed the existing scientific literature in this regard and, finally, after analysing where the Spanish State is in this area, pointed out some initiatives that have taken place at an international level to improve the current systems of research assessment.
You can watch a video of the event at this link.
You can also access the presentations by Christel Lutz, Enrique Orduña, Núria Bautista and Carmen Pérez.