ANECA awards quality labels to 33 institutions

Tomorrow, Tuesday 11 October, academic quality will come together at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. From 11:00 a.m. onwards, the ceremony for the awarding of the ANECA Integral Quality Recognitions and the Quality Label in Academic Publishing will take place. 

Around 200 people will attend the event and 97 certificates will be awarded to 33 institutions. The aim of this meeting is to recognise the institutions distinguished with the quality labels and to reflect on their relevance for the improvement of the academic, scientific and professional system. The event will begin with welcoming remarks by Mercedes Siles Molina, director of ANECA, and the speech of José Manuel Pingarrón Carrazón, secretary general of universities. Juan Romo Urroz, President of CRUE Spanish Universities, will then take the floor.

The event will take place with the presentation of the ANECA quality awards granted in the 2021 call, which will be preceded by a report that collects the results in its different versions of quality and academic edition, presented by Ana Isabel Bonilla Calero, head of the International Quality Labels Programme of the Agency. 

In the words of the director of ANECA, Mercedes Siles Molina: "This event is the recognition of the good work that 33 institutions (three of them Mexican) have done to obtain international quality awards in Engineering, Computer Science, Chemistry, Medicine, Distance and Hybrid Education and Academic Publishing". 

It is worth mentioning that for the first time the ENPHI label for distance and hybrid teaching will be awarded, a distinction created to promote and recognise the enormous effort made by the universities when they had to change from face-to-face to distance teaching as a result of COVID-19 and which is aimed at promoting this type of teaching. 

Likewise, in this edition, three Spanish universities have obtained the International Quality Label for Medical Studies, based on the standards of the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME), managed by ANECA. 

The award ceremony will focus on the Integrated Quality Awards (IQA) of the 2021 call:

• International Quality Labels (IQL) EURACE for Engineering.
• International Quality Labels (IQL) EUROINF for Computer Science.
• International Quality Labels (IQL) EUROLABEL for Chemistry.
• International Quality Labels (IQL) for Medicine.
• International Quality Label for Remote and Hybrid Learning.

In addition, the Quality Label for Academic Publishing/ Academic Publishing Quality (CEA/APQ) for monograph collections, which ANECA manages in collaboration with the Spanish Union of University Publishers (UNE) and the Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), will be awarded. Imma Aguilar Nàcher, director of FECYT, said in a statement prior to the ceremony that "these actions are necessary so that our science is not only excellent, but also communicated in an excellent way through our language".

The awards will be presented by the director of ANECA, Mercedes Siles Molina; Imma Aguilar Nàcher, director of FECYT; María Isabel Cabrera García, president of UNE; Asunción López López, manager of ANECA; Alfonso Vallés Sales, coordinator of the EQuAM Programme; Fernando Suárez Lorenzo, President of the Spanish General Council of Informatics Engineering (CCII); Eduardo Peris Millán, President of the General Council of the Professional Association of Technical Computer Engineers (CONCITI); Sanjiv Prashar, President of ECTN; and Lourdes Lledó García, representative of CNDMED.

The meeting will also be attended by leading figures from the different areas involved in the evaluation of these 6 labels and their development: international quality assurance associations, managers of the awarded institutions, professional institutions, as well as evaluators and assessors of the different labels and companies. In the words of Mercedes Siles Molina, it will be "a celebration of commitment to quality and excellence".