Pope Francis appointed as new members of the Board of Directors of AVEPRO, the Holy See’s Agency for the Evaluation and Promotion of the Quality of the Ecclesiastical Universities and Faculties: The Reverend Henry Omonisaye, General Consultant of the Congregation of Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary; Professor Anthony Paul McClaran, Rector of London’s St. Mary’s University, and Professor Antonio Felice Uricchio, President of the Board of Directors of the National Agency of Evaluation of the University and Research System (ANVUR).
AVEPRO
As the Vatican states, the Holy See’s Agency for the Evaluation and Promotion of the Quality of Ecclesiastical Universities and Faculties (AVEPRO) — instituted by the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI with the Chirograph of September 19, 2007 –, is an institution linked to the Holy See, in keeping with Articles 186 and 190-191 of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus.
Its principal task is to promote and develop a culture of quality in the academic institutions directly dependent on the Holy See and to ensure to them internationally valid quality criteria. The Holy See’s adherence to the Bologna Process (September 19, 2003 during the meeting of the European Union’s Ministers of Education in Berlin) was also characterized by the intention to pursue and reach some objectives of the Bologna Process, among them:
- Respect of the specificities and diversity of the different University Systems;
- Creation of a Common Area of Higher Education that fosters the involvement of University institutions in an international dimension;
- Attention to quality as an intrinsic and necessary value for University research and innovation.
The Agency collaborates with academic institutions in defining the procedures for the internal evaluation of the quality of teaching, research, and services, through the development and use of appropriate operative tools (guidelines, questionnaires, databases, information networks, etc.). It also plans the procedures of external evaluation of the different academic institutions, organizing expert’s visits in situ.
Respecting the autonomy in which it carries out its activities, the Agency works in collaboration with all those interested in the life and progress of Ecclesiastical Universities and Faculties: their institutions, the Congregation for Catholic Education, the Episcopal Conferences, all national, regional, and international authorities and all those that work in the different dioceses of the countries where Ecclesiastical Academic Institutions are found.
Translation by Virginia M. Forrester
