LEGAL FRAMEWORK
Law 5/2005, of 14 June, on the Organisation of the University System of Aragon (LOSUA), establishes in article 15 that “the creation, suppression and adhesion of the University Research Institutes corresponds to the Government of Aragon. This decision can be adopted at the initiative of the Social Board or the competent Department in university education maters with the agreement of the Social Board. In any case, it must count with the prior report from the Governing Council of the University and the Aragon Agency for Quality Assurance and Strategic Foresight in Higher Education”.
In addition, paragraph 3 of that Article provides that: "The task of the University Research Institutes must be submitted to a report by the Aragon Agency for Quality Assurance and Strategic Foresight in Higher Education every five years. In the case of negative report, the Government may agree the suppression of the Institute or grant a period to amend the errors or insufficiencies detected.”
In response to this LOSUA assignment, the agency has defined two related processes:
- The pre-creation evaluation
- The periodic evaluation (follow-up)
In this way, once the Institute is created and set up, the periodic follow-up every five years monitors its activity, proposing improvement actions when necessary or even proposing its suppression in the event that it is not complying with the proposed objectives.
RESEARCH EVALUATION SUB-COMMISSION (SEI)
The Research Evaluation Sub-commission (SET) is responsible for issuing all the reports related to the evaluation of Degrees. To this end, it considers the proposals for reasoned reports made by the respective experts (ad-hoc panels) in the light of the evaluation criteria and standards included in each of the protocols.
Evaluation reports:
All the degree evaluation reports issued by ACPUA can be found on this web.
COMPLAINTS, CLAIMS AND APPEALS
All activities of the ACPUA are subject to the Procedure for handling appeals, complaints and claims.
Protocols
The URIs evaluation programme is based on the evaluation of the following criteria, as described in the respective evaluation protocols (see attached documents):
- A) Strategic definition of the URI
- B) Interest in the objectives
- C) Planning of activities
- D) Team experience
- E) Resources and budget
- F) Management structure
The agency has defined two related processes:
- The pre-creation evaluation
- The periodic evaluation (follow-up)
Archivos adjuntos
Evaluation Committees
Pre-creation evaluation
The Aragon Agency for Quality Assurance and Strategic Foresight in Higher Education will initiate the procedure to issue the evaluation report at the request of the General Directorate of the Department responsible for university education of the Government of Aragon.
The request for a report prior to the creation or affiliation of a University Research Institute must be accompanied by the following documentation in electronic format:
The application for evaluation will be accompanied by the following documentation:
- Creation or affiliation report.
- Agreement of the Social Council of each proposing University regarding the creation or affiliation of the institute.
- Report of the Governing Council of each proposing University regarding the creation or affiliation of the institute.
- If it concerns the affiliation of a centre to a University as a University Research Institute, the corresponding affiliation agreement must be provided.
- Any other documentation that the applicant University considers of interest.
The ACPUA will review the content of the submitted documentation. In case of detecting any deficiency in the same, this will be communicated to the University that will have ten working days for the correction.
Periodic evaluation (follow-up)
The periodic evaluation aims to assess the quality of the activities carried out by the institute in the period of time since the last evaluation, evaluating the trajectory and scientific, technical, artistic, cultural, social and economic interest of the same. The external vision of the expert evaluators, integrated in the corresponding panels, in addition to ensuring the correct fulfillment of the evaluation criteria provides recommendations for improvement that may be useful for the development of the IRIs.
The evaluation is made from the reflection of the institute itself on its activity in the 5 years since the last evaluation of the agency. This reflection should include the main milestones that have occurred, the challenges that the institute has faced or the main changes made. It must be a reflection that takes into consideration the last evaluation carried out on the institute and must respond to the recommendations contained in the evaluation report exposing the actions carried out and the results obtained or explaining why the recommendations have not been taken into account.
The periodic evaluation is carried out after the creation of the IRI every 5 years, according to the LOSUA.
This protocol may also be applied in those newly created institutes, which, having not yet developed their activity during the entire period evaluated, voluntarily express their desire to adhere to the process of periodic evaluation of IRIs. In this case, only the time period from the creation rule of the IRI will be considered.
Ongoing evaluation
There are no ongoing evaluations.
The reports corresponding to the evaluations carried out so far can be found in the Reports Query section.
