The Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (AQU Catalunya), serves as the primary entity for promoting and ensuring quality within the higher education system in Catalonia. As a signatory of DORA and a member organization of CoARA, the Research Assessment Commission (CAR) of AQU Catalunya has approved new criteria and procedures for the 2024 research period assessment.
These new criteria are meant to broaden “the type of contributions that applicants can submit for assessment in order to recognise a greater diversity of research profiles and careers in a context that favours multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity.” To achieve this, AQU Catalunya has outlined the following goals for the next 6 years:
- Moving towards qualitative assessment, backed by a responsible utilization of quantitative indicators. They will require applicants to furnish a narrative justification in their applications, which should highlight the evidence of relevance and impact for each contribution.
- Promoting open science in society and the use of “institutional repositories as a form of access to documentation, to guarantee the agility of evaluation procedures.” Note, however, that this agency has offered applicants the ability to include their contributions from the Open Data Catalogue of the Generalitat de Catalunya since 2017.
- Establishing a new taxonomy of metrics that validate both the scientific impact of contributions and their ability to generate social impact, which, for example, can be achieved by making “contributions to the design and implementation of public policies, development of solutions to social problems, etc.”
The Research Assessment Commission approves the criteria for the 2024 six-yearly research period assessment (2024). https://www.aqu.cat/en/About-us/What-we-do/News/news/The-Research-Assessment-Commission-approves-the-criteria-for-the-2024-six-yearly-research-period-assessment