2016_06_06_EDU_Acup

"We have to bet on a responsible research and innovation, which are carried out with society and for society". This was stated at the University of Navarra by Josep María Vilalta, executive secretary of the association Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP) and director executive of the Global University Network for Innovation (GUNi).

The expert participated in an inter-university seminar where excellence in universities was analyzed from the point of view of quality, innovation and reputation.

The meeting was organized by the School of Education and Psychology, within the network of Excellence "University, Innovation and Learning in the society of knowledge", formed by four Spanish universities: University of Santiago de Compostela, Complutense University of Madrid, University of Navarra and University of Valencia.

Josep María Vilalta pointed out that we are facing a changing society "where Education is asking itself what it should do, and reflecting on whether what it is doing is still effective".

For her part, Maria de la Viesca, consultant at the University Campus Biomedico de Roma and former Director of Quality at Clínica Universidad de Navarra, focused on the social and ethical responsibility of companies, insisting on the need to establish codes of conduct: "A culture of respect is essential in a highly reliable organization", to which she added that "a lack of a code of behavior affects the work team". 

Reputation and rankings

Concepción Naval, dean of the School of Education and Piscology, explained how "the perceived quality is, in the world educational, the so-called reputation", and the causes of the emergence of the discussion of the reputation of universities: "The availability of reputation measurement tools such as rankings are the cause of the emergence of the discussion of public reputation".

The dean also reflected on the concept of success and its relationship with quality, which are "mistakenly confused, just as it is wrong to confuse quality with quantity". In addition, she called for "a greater link with social problems, when seeking excellence in the transmission of knowledge".

This idea was also stressed by Miguel Ángel Santos Rego, president of the Galician Commission of Reports, assessment, accreditation and Certification (ACSUG), who said that "learning and innovation must be related to social problems".