SharePresident and Director of AQU Catalunya Meet to Discuss the Agency’s New Challenges
Coinciding with the 29th anniversary of AQU Catalunya, they held a meeting to address the challenges the Agency will have to face in the coming years.
The president and the director of AQU Catalunya, Francesc Xavier Grau Vidal and Mercè Gisbert Cervera, met today to analyze the challenges the Agency will have to face in the coming period. Coinciding with the 29th anniversary of AQU Catalunya, founded on 29 October 1996 as the Consortium for the Quality of the Catalan University System, both Grau and Gisbert focused on the goals the Agency will need to achieve most urgently.
In the legislative sphere, one of AQU Catalunya’s upcoming projects is to analyze the impact of, and incorporate into its activities, the Draft Royal Decree amending Royal Decree 640/2021 on the creation, recognition and authorization of universities and university centers, and on the institutional accreditation of university centers in Spain. During the meeting, the Agency’s two top representatives also focused on the upcoming international external review of compliance with the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG), which will be carried out by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) at the end of 2026. The implementation of the Framework for the improvement of institutional quality in the Catalan university system (QUALINS Framework), the implementation of the COARA Action Plan 2025–2029, the 2026 Graduate Employment Outcomes Study, and the implementation of the Science Law were also topics addressed by the president and the director during their meeting.
The meeting, which takes place just one month after Gisbert took office as director, served to reaffirm the commitment to continue building the Agency’s legacy on the basis of the contributions made by all the directors and presidents who have previously held these positions. “To all this prior experience, I must add my conviction that only with a solid quality assurance strategy will we be able to move forward, as a system, and successfully take on all the challenges expected in the coming years,” said Cervera, who stressed that these challenges will need to be addressed “from a holistic and international perspective” that will enable AQU Catalunya “to become a tool that helps the system face threats and make the most of all opportunities.”
For his part, the president wished to emphasize that “AQU Catalunya is one of the most experienced and most highly regarded European agencies within the European Higher Education Area.” This prestige, built over nearly thirty years of dedication, has been achieved thanks to constant and close collaboration with the universities and with the government, and also “thanks to the commitment, professionalism and generosity of the staff and external experts, who place their knowledge and experience at the service of the Catalan university system.” The president stressed that “this spirit of collective work has been key to driving progress and the continuous improvement of Catalonia’s university system, consolidating it as a benchmark in terms of quality.”