The impact of the evaluation policies of academic staff in the position in university rankings: The case of the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña

Abstract

Spanish universities have moved from a classical model, a teaching university, to a modern one, in which research is essential. Part of this success is due to the implementation of quality assessment policies. Nonetheless, and in spite of this, there is still a long way to place it at the level of similar countries in university rankings. The Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña has an evaluation model of the teaching performance of its staff, and also abundant information of their research. This has allowed implementing a global evaluation model. Here we present the evaluation model. Also, using 4,996 individual evaluations corresponding to about 1,700 academic staff members we analyze the evolution of the results of the evaluations of years 2011, 2012 and 2013, we study if there are differences among the various academic fields, and we examine if there exists a correlation between the evolution of the academic productivity measured using this model and the position of the university in the university rankings. We show that this model has allowed the university to improve its classification in the Quacquarelli Symonds Top University Ranking, from position 350 to 337.