ANECA speeds up the issuance of accreditation and equivalence reports in the first half of 2025, reaching record figures

• For the first time, the evaluation criteria are published and a significant number of general measures are proposed.
• The percentage of late applications (mostly due to missing documentation) is reduced to a minimum.

The work to streamline and rationalize ANECA's program for foreign degrees is producing excellent results, to the extent that, by the end of the first half of 2025, ANECA has already issued almost 1,000 more reports than in the whole of 2024.

Specifically, this amounts to a total of 6, 596 reports, which means that more reports on recognition and equivalencies have been issued in the first half of 2025 than in the last 10 full years, with the exception of 2022 and 2023, years for which ANECA has already issued around 70% of the number of reports issued for each of these years.

ANECA continues to work with experts from different fields on the publication of the evaluation criteria applicable to the recognition of foreign qualifications in different professions, in order to make the evaluation process more transparent, rigorous, and predictable. In the first half of 2025, ANECA published a total of eight resolutions on criteria associated with official qualifications leading to the regulated professions of doctor, pharmacist, physiotherapist, veterinarian, technical architect, speech therapist, technical engineer in public works, civil engineer, engineer in channels and ports, technical industrial engineer, and industrial engineer. Channels and Ports, Industrial Technical Engineer, and Industrial Engineer. With these, there are now 15 regulated professions for which ANECA has published the applicable criteria, and similar resolutions are being worked on for the remaining 16 professions.

In addition, and in order to speed up the processing of files by the Ministry, ANECA continues to work on establishing general measures applicable at the level of degree, university, and country. In this regard, during the first half of 2025, ANECA has drawn up four new general measures that will be proposed for approval to the Technical Analysis Commission for Homologations and Declarations of Equivalence (CATHYDE). These four measures, published on the ANECA website, apply, in the case of equivalence at the degree level, to degrees from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela. In the case of recognition, they apply to foreign degrees that request recognition as equivalent to the official Spanish degree leading to the regulated profession of doctor, as well as to a set of specific degrees from foreign universities that have received favorable reports on several occasions. ANECA will continue working during the second half of 2025 to issue new resolutions on general measures.

It should also be noted that the number of files received by ANECA for assessment has increased significantly, exceeding 6,500, including data from files received at the end of December 2024. In order to deal with this volume, ANECA has implemented various measures, such as requesting the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities to modify the maximum limit of 50 specialists in the program, increasing the number of specialists associated with areas with a higher volume (mainly those in the health professions), and reviewing the internal operating structure to make the processing of files more agile.