AQU Catalunya has issued the report “Analysis of the age of applicants for teaching staff accreditation”, an analysis focused on the ages of university professors who obtain teaching staff accreditation. The document, produced internally by the Agency at the express request of its Governing Board in July 2022, indicates that the average age at which applications for tenure-eligible lecturer accreditation are submitted is 37; research applications, on the other hand, are submitted on average at the age of 40.8 and those for advanced research are not submitted, on average, until the age of 47. If an analysis is made by area of knowledge, in the case of Health and Medical Sciences, the average age increases by between 2 and 5 years compared to the global average in all three types of accreditation. The lowest ages are found among people applying in Sciences and Engineering and Architecture.
The analysis also takes into account the gender of the applicants. Among the conclusions, it is noteworthy that women apply for tenure-eligible lecturer reports earlier than men (36.7 versus 37.3 years, respectively), for research at a similar age on average (around 40), and for advanced research accreditation later than men. In the latter case, men apply for advanced research accreditation at 46.7 years, while women do so at 47.6. Putting the data of the last 20 years into perspective, it can be seen that there is a slight increasing trend in age at all three levels of research, implying that accreditation is being obtained later and later.
The analysis also shows differences by place of residence. In this regard, it should be noted that 73% of the applications were submitted by people living in the province of Barcelona. It is also relevant that 89.4% of applicants reside in Catalonia. However, there are no notable differences in the age of applicants according to place of residence.
Finally, the report also looks at whether there are differences in the age of applicants depending on the ownership of the university, as recruitment processes differ depending on whether the university is in the public or private system. In other words, in public universities, accreditation is an individual access requirement, while in private universities it is a university requirement. In view of this reality, the analysis carried out by AQU Catalunya indicates that the status of the university is reported in 18,473 of the total of 24,895 applications processed by the Agency. Of those for which this figure is known, 82% belong to PhD holders who obtained this qualification at a public university.
In addition, the majority of applicants are working in public universities, 89.1%. For this reason, age comparisons between people working in public and private universities should be made with some caution. However, it can be noted that people working in a public university in the Catalan system submit, on average, applications for tenure-eligible lecturer, research and advanced research earlier. Moreover, this trend can be observed in all areas.