Alliance for the quality of knowledge in Latin America and the Caribbean

The National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA for its Spanish abbreviation) of Spain and UNESCO IESALC organize the first technical training and innovation program within the Intercoonecta Plan of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), which will take place from January to December 2023.

The ANECA-UNESCO IESALC technical training and innovation programming presentation event will take place on November 17, 2022, from 12:00h to 14:00h (Spain GMT+2). The event will be broadcasted through ANECA TV channel.

The ANECA-UNESCO IESALC proposal consists of the design, through a dialogue among equals and in a co-creation scheme, of an innovative accompanying program in the higher knowledge space of the Latin American and Caribbean region, with projection in the 2030 Agenda. The objective is to strengthen public higher education institutions (HEIs) in the region to promote talent mobility and social inclusion with a focus on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Under the title “LAB Quality that unites us”, a set of activities will be developed in a workshop format and in a network between the quality teams of the HEIs of the region supported by a group of facilitators and learning connectors. In a space for dialogue, strategic aspects related to the transformation of the higher education system such as academic integrity, institutional accreditation, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, teaching innovation, taxonomy of knowledge in Spanish, digital transformation, etc. will be addressed.

This event is aimed at those teams of people who make up the quality cores of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and will begin with a speech by Joan Subirats Humet, Minister of Universities of the Spanish Government. Then, Mercedes Siles Molina, director of ANECA and Antón Leis García, director of AECID will take the floor. Alfonso Vallés Sales, head of ANECA’s Internationalization Commission, will present the design elements, objectives and activities of the “LAB de Calidad que nos une” program.

Subsequently, and under a dialogue format, the central topic of conversation will be “The alliance for the transformation of Higher Education Institutions in the Latin American and Caribbean region”, with the participation of: Mercedes Siles Molina, director of ANECA, Antón Leis García, director of AECID, Francesc Pedró, director of UNESCO IESALC. This session will be moderated by Carlos Mataix Aldeanueva, director of the Innovation Center for Development Technology itdUPM.

The event is scheduled to close at 13:30. Access the agenda of the event here

In relation to this Intercoonecta Plan and the training programs based on social and collaborative learning for the analysis and development of better public and institutional policies, Mercedes Siles Molina, director of ANECA, wanted to highlight: “This program is a good example of the new ANECA that we are consolidating in recent years, an agency focused on accompanying higher education institutions, from the co-responsibility in the assurance and improvement of quality. A co-responsibility which implies the network collaboration of all the agents involved, and which joins the international projection of ANECA, as an agency involved in the development of the European Higher Education Area and the Ibero-American Knowledge Area. From this perspective, being able to count on the collaboration of a partner of the trajectory of UNESCO IESALC is a great contribution to the success of this proposal. And all this under the umbrella of the AECID’s Intercoonecta program, which is committed to education as a driver of development. This is an opportunity to materialize and consolidate a network of co-creation, innovation and training among peers”.

Antón Leis García, director of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, said: “AECID also intends to develop a research process to generate a solid corpus of quality assurance terminology for the Higher Knowledge Space in the region and beyond, in Spanish, which will result in the elaboration of a knowledge product. This alliance of cooperation for development that we are initiating between both institutions, with the active and reflexive accompaniment of LAC Higher Education Institutions, should allow the generation of innovative strategies for the construction and improvement of systems that have an impact on the global development challenge of achieving quality higher education”

Universities in Latin America and the Caribbean are living a moment of transition towards more demanding systems in terms of quality and equity. In this process, ANECA’s alliance with UNESCO IESALC can contribute enormously to the development of more and better capacities, fostering regional cooperation

Francesc Pedró, Director of UNESCO IESALC

IESALC contributes to the Intercoonecta program by researching and applying methodological frameworks aimed at capacity development through training programs within its IESALC Campus. These programs are based on an active learning methodology with tangible results in direct application plans to ensure impact in higher education ecosystems.

It also contributes to the Intercoonecta Program the course “Regional Agreement for the Recognition of Studies” to raise awareness among public officials, authorities of higher education institutions, quality agencies and students about the importance of the implementation of the Agreement in the region to strengthen the quality of national higher education systems, and thus promote academic and research mobility, teachers and social inclusion through the recognition of competencies of migrants and displaced persons.

The launching event will be attended, both in person and virtually, by ambassadors, heads and institutional representatives from different countries in the region, including higher education institutions.

Following this event, a webinar will be held on Wednesday, November 23rd at 17:00, Spanish peninsular time, aimed at ministries and public organizations to provide information on all aspects of participation in the Quality Lab Program that unites us in Intercoonecta, so that public Higher Education Institutions in the different countries can propose their participation in the program.

Quality Lab Program that unites us

Informative webinar aimed at institutions responsible for the quality of HEIs in the region to share the details of the program and the criteria for participation. Date: November 23, 2022.

• Workshop for the design and activation of the Network. Transnational Integration of Teams. January 2023.
• Dialogue on Academic Integrity from the Institutional perspective. February 2023
• Quality as a function in the integral structure of knowledge. March 2023.
• The transformative role of evaluation agencies. The accompaniment model. April 2023
• Design of internal quality assurance systems by HEI teams. May 2023
• Design of teaching quality assurance systems. Innovation, Diversity and Inclusion. June 2023
• People in evaluation processes: peers and visiting panels. July 2023
• Analytic of the Quality of Knowledge. Accompaniment Guides. Digital processes. Verifiable credentials. SeptPerspectives of Institutional Accreditation in the region. October 2023.
• Recognition of participation in the program. On-site congress. Personal experience workshop. Best practices. November 2023
• Meta-evaluation of the “Lab Quality that unites us” program in Interconecta. December 23 – January 2024.