A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya
This initiative aims to guide and recognise the academic development of teaching staff who are in an intermediate stage of their professional career, and provides important information about their educational activities, research, and knowledge transfer.
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The assessment of university teaching staff is a fundamental tool to guarantee the quality of higher education and research. As such, the Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (AQU Catalunya) has designed a new, specific process to assess the performance of tenure-eligible lecturers at the halfway point of their initial contract periods.
This initiative aims to guide and recognise the academic development of teaching staff who are in an intermediate stage of their professional career, and provides important information about their educational activities, research, and knowledge transfer. The ultimate goal is to assess the progress and quality of the teaching and research work of the new doctoral assistants —it should be noted that with the Framework Act on the University System (LOSU) prior accreditation is no longer required—, enabling them to earn the merits to subsequently become associate professors.
That is, under the LOSU, employed academics have a three-stage career: initial stage, stabilisation stage, and promotion stage. After earning a doctoral degree, professionals can begin an academic career at the first level of access as a post-doctoral assistant lecturer or tenure-eligible lecturer. This role does not require any accreditation. Therefore, universities can directly hire doctoral degree holders for a period of six years. In the middle of this contract, the university —or the Agency— will carry out an evaluation for guidance purposes, described below. Stabilisation is achieved with accreditation as an associate professor — a process formerly known as research accreditation — and promotion is achieved with accreditation as a full professor.
Here we set out the keys to this new service, the legal framework governing it, the details of the process and the evaluation criteria that must be applied, as well as the planned roll-out schedule.
This intermediate assessment of tenure-eligible lecturers is governed by Article 78.e) of the Framework Act on the University System (LOSU), which establishes the need to assess the progress and quality of teaching and research work and, where appropriate, the knowledge transfer of post-doctoral assistant lecturer.
According to the regulations, this evaluation can be carried out by the universities themselves or commissioned to quality assurance agencies. In this regard, several Catalan universities have shown an interest in the support of AQU Catalunya, leading the Agency to design this specific evaluation service, due to be launched in April 2026. By this time, the new university legislation will have been in force for three years, and therefore, there may already be “LOSU lecturers” eligible for this evaluation.
This process will be included in the Agency’s service catalogue and aims to provide a clear, objective and transparent framework to guide tenure-eligible lecturers’ careers towards accreditation as associate professors. In this regard, the evaluation will focus on providing guidance.
This new assessment is aimed at Catalan universities that wish to commission AQU Catalunya to evaluate their tenure-eligible lecturers through an agreement. That is, the Agency will only assess candidates who belong to universities with which an agreement has been signed.
The guiding assessment is designed for teaching and research staff with current tenure-eligible lecturer contracts at Catalan universities that have an agreement with AQU Catalunya. In addition, the person must have held this contract for at least three years. In addition, the assessment can only be requested once and does not automatically entitle the candidate to become an associate professor.
Applications may be submitted throughout the year online. Narrative CVs and relevant documentation will be required. Once the application has been submitted, the assessment report will be sent to the individual and to the university within six months at most. This planning allows universities to have reliable and appropriate information about the progress of their teaching staff.
The AQU Catalunya Research Assessment Committee, through its specific committees, is in charge of carrying out the intermediate assessment of tenure-eligible lecturers. This approach guarantees objectivity and consistency with other assessment processes already in place within the Catalan university system.
In establishing the criteria, the guiding principle was the criteria for accrediting associate professors, especially in dimensions and subdimensions that require a minimum score. In this context, the Research Assessment Committee (CAR) will apply the guidelines from the LOSU, as well as the principles of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) for a comprehensive shift in approaches to research assessment.
The goal is to assess whether tenure-eligible lecturers have achieved a sufficient level of academic maturity to become associate professors at the end of the contract. As the required merits represent approximately half of those required for the accreditation of associate professors, the report serves as a guidance and preparation tool. The assessment must place special emphasis on the following dimensions and subdimensions:
Regarding research and transfer merits, the Research Assessment Committee must apply the same considerations established in the criteria for the accreditation of associate professors, adapted, naturally, to each candidate’s specific circumstances. Namely, it is clearly stated that the quality of scientific contributions, demonstrated through objective, internationally accepted parameters, matters more than quantity. The issue of how to account for publications that are found to have shortcomings during the expert assessment process is also addressed.
Regarding university teaching merits, the applicant must simultaneously demonstrate that they have taught more than fifteen credits and must provide evidence of teaching quality (narrative summary of university teaching career and quality, positive evaluations with teaching evaluation manual, other evidence of educational quality). Likewise, following the position of the University Teaching Policy Committee of the Inter-University Council of Catalonia, there will be special recognition of initial teacher training at Catalan universities.
The dimensions must be assessed and the following performance levels must be achieved:
| Level | Description |
| A | Very good (exceeds expectations) |
| B | Good (with recommendations for improvement) |
| C | Weak (need for improvement) |
| D | Poor (does not meet expectations) |
The results of the assessment, as detailed in the report, will be given as either a pass or a fail. The lecturer will have passed the assessment if none of the key dimensions (“Research publications”, “Research projects” and “University teaching”) are given a D. Otherwise, they will be considered to have failed the assessment.
Regardless of the result, each report must include a detailed rationale with specific recommendations, allowing tenure-eligible lecturers to focus on becoming accredited as associate professors when their contracts end. Both the applicant and the university will be informed of the results, providing a clear vision of academic progress and possible improvements.
The service will be available starting in April 2026. It is expected that all interested Catalan universities will gradually join. The initial agreement will last four years, with the possibility of renewal.
During the last year, the directors of the Agency and the Research Assessment Committee, after listening to our Governing Council, have been working on the design of this performance assessment for tenure-eligible lecturers.
The experience of the Agency directors and CAR in the various teaching staff accreditation processes s a strength regarding the launch of this new service, which must both provide universities with recognition and guidance tools in relation to the management of teaching staff and help tenure-eligible lecturers identify areas for improvement so that they can successfully become associate professors.