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All UPF doctoral programmes have been “accredited with excellence”

AQU Catalonia has awarded the highest rating possible to the nine doctoral programmes taught at the University, for which it highlights the suitability of teaching staff and the quality of the results obtained.

15.01.2020

Imatge inicial

The nine doctoral programmes offered by Pompeu Fabra University have obtained the overall qualification of “accredited with excellence”, as part of the verification, monitoring, modification and accreditation process of official studies (VMMA framework) undertaken since 2014 by the Agency for Quality in the University System of Catalonia (AQU Catalonia).

Different external assessment committees (CAE) and specific assessment committees (CEA) have been responsible for assessing the nine doctoral programmes that have received their final AQU Catalonia accreditation report at different times: Biomedicine, Political and Social Sciences and Law (October 2018); Economics, Finance and Business (February 2019), History, Humanities and Translation and Language Sciences (June 2019), Information and Communication Technologies (October 2019) and the last programme, Communication (November 2019).

Between June 2018 and January 2019, a total of six accreditation visits were made to UPF, at which the CAE could see for themselves the functioning of the doctoral programmes and met with different stakeholders that make up the university community (management team, teaching staff, doctoral students, PhDs and employers).

The “accredited with excellence” qualification obtained by all of the programmes means that the qualification fulfils most of the accreditation standards to high quality and, therefore, several good practices are identified that are above the minimum level required. Some of the issues taken into account are that the foreseen number of students enrol, that theses are completed within the deadline, that they are high quality, that they provide measurable results in scientific contributions, and that the teaching staff is actively conducting research.

The most positively rated standards of the UPF doctoral programmes are the suitability of teaching staff and the quality of the results obtained.

The six accreditation standards taken into consideration in the accreditation process, both for under- and postgraduate studies, are quality of training programmes, relevance of public information, effectiveness of the internal quality assurance system, suitability of teaching staff, efficiency of the support-for-learning system, and quality of results.

Among these standards, the ones with the greatest weight in the accreditation are suitability of teaching staff and quality of results (which assesses such aspects as the coherence of doctoral theses, training activities and their assessment, and the adaptation of academic and employability indicators to the characteristics of the doctoral programme). These two standards are precisely the ones that have been most positively evaluated in all UPF doctoral programmes, both achieved with excellence.

34 undergraduate and postgraduate courses “accredited with excellence”

100% of the qualifications issued by UPF centres that have so far undergone the AQU Catalonia evaluation process (54 degrees divided between 19 bachelor’s degrees, 26 master’s degrees and nine doctorates) have been positively accredited, most “accredited with excellence” and the rest have achieved the qualification of “accredited”. No official qualification has been placed in the “accredited with conditions” and “unaccredited” categories.

100% of the qualifications issued by UPF centres that have so far undergone the AQU Catalonia evaluation process have been positively accredited.

To date the University has 11 bachelor’s and 14 master’s degrees “accredited with excellence” (i.e., 56% of the qualifications evaluated altogether in these two areas), and nine doctoral programmes (100%).

To understand these results it should be taken into account that the different degrees are re-accredited cyclically (master’s degrees every four years and bachelor’s and doctoral degrees every six, besides if there is a notable change in the programme, new accreditation is required), and that some UPF qualifications have not yet been accredited as they are very new.

Accreditation aims to ensure users that the training programmes offered by universities meet not only the formal, administrative and quality requirements, but that the level of education attained by graduates corresponds to what is certified by the institution.

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