Faculty evaluation in Spain. The national system and sub-national divergence

The growing emphasis on worldwide university ranking is boosting competitiveness at an international level, especially on the playing field of research, and this increased competitiveness is influencing domestic policy. The pressure on faculty has increased dramatically, as have the standards and criteria for passing faculty evaluations. In Spain, the University Act passed in 2001 and partially amended in 2007 has changed the landscape in terms of access to teaching positions, as firstly evidenced by the requirement of prior teacher accreditation by means of an external evaluation in order to gain access to professorships at any public university. Spanish legislation combines different levels of decentralization in university matters. As a result, different quality evaluation/accreditation agencies and evaluation models have been created. This paper gives a descriptive comparative analysis of legislation based on documentary sources concerning nationwide and regional faculty evaluation. In addition, data from the regional agency that handles the largest number of evaluations (the Madrid agency) and concerning the transformation of the contracts of faculty members now in service (N = 801) are analyzed and compared with the results of candidate satisfaction surveys. Ten sub-national evaluation systems are reviewed and classified into three groups according to their degree of objectivity and transparency. Candidate satisfaction is shown to be higher when the degree of objectivity is higher. Some discussion is then devoted to the problem of the evaluative inefficiency caused by transferring faculty from one system to another and by the creation of twelve regional agencies that share similar responsibilities yet fail to recognize one another. Lastly, a more objective, ethical evaluation culture is proposed to reduce the arbitrariness and ambiguity of many evaluation systems.