Universitat Jaume I - UJI - Castello

Universitat Jaume I (UJI) opens the new academic year 2008–2009 backed with the award of the Golden Seal of Excellence Europe 500+, or Five Stars. This award is the result of the evaluation carried out last July by the Excellence in Management Club, which followed the European Foundation Quality Management (EFQM) model, one of the quality systems most widely used within European companies and a reference for the all public administrations. The University Rector, Professor Francisco Toledo, announced the award of this distinction to the university community. He declared that “this is a remarkable milestone, a difficult one to reach”. The formal award ceremony will be held in November during the official opening of the academic year.

This recognition– the first obtained by a Spanish university after the agreement reached between the Spanish National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA) and the Excellence Club – places UJI in the vanguard of quality management, since in Spain only 20 organisations (both companies and institutions) have been able to obtain this award. For each organisation, the EFQM model uses 32 subcriteria divided into 9 groups, and consists of 3 levels of results (+300, +400 and +500). At present, just over 30 public institutions in Europe have received the Golden Seal (+500). In addition to UJI, this seal has been obtained by the University of Castile-La Mancha and the Miguel Hernández University in Elx, Spain, but only for specific activity fields. In the case of UJI, the accreditation scores are the highest possible not only as regards financial and administrative management, but also the management of teaching, research, socio-cultural issues and social impact, and, in short, the global activity undertaken by the University.

In order to obtain this award, UJI has been preparing a quality report for several years. This report brings together all the work carried out by the university as a whole in its various facets. Furthermore, last year it was checked by a group of auditors from the Excellence in Management Club, who personally visited the campus to verify on the spot the data provided and thus gather the evidence necessary to award the more than 500 points finally obtained by UJI in accordance with the EFQM model.

The Rector wishes to thank the work done by the whole university community of Castelló for the award. This work has involved developing objectives and measurement indicators for all the University activities, and has been carried out within the framework of the Strategic Management System, which has allowed UJI to be recognised nationally and internationally. The Rector has also encouraged the teaching and research staff, the administration and service staff and the students to keep working with a self-critical attitude, seeking continuous improvement.