World Quality Day: UC goes hand in hand with continuous improvement
The UC was the first public university in Portugal to obtain a nationally certified Quality Management System. Twenty years later, it continues to lead the way.
English version by Diana Taborda
Kaizen is a Japanese term that means "change for better" or "continuous improvement”, suggesting that small, ongoing improvements can lead to significant changes over time. It encourages all employees of an organisation to regularly suggest and implement improvements. The approach originated in Japan in the 1950s, amid the devastation of the aftermath of the Second World War. Its goal? To improve industrial processes and the international competitiveness of Japanese companies. It took only a few decades for this philosophy to be embraced by the Western world.
And what does this have to do with World Quality Day and the University of Coimbra (UC)? Everything. World Quality Day [celebrated this year on the 9th of November] aims to stimulate individual reflection. Sílvia Santos, Head of the UC Quality Promotion Office (DPQ), says that the aim is to "understand what I can do better do better in my job" and "what I can do in a simpler way" in order to contribute to the bigger picture. The logic of continuous improvement is that of the Kaizen philosophy, and it applies to the UC.
The numbers speak for themselves. Last year, the motivation rating of people working at the UC was 85 per cent. Satisfaction is 92 per cent when a company or organisation hosts University students for internships.
These are just some of the data and indicators "collected as part of the UC Quality Management System (QMS), which help us to understand how the institution is evolving, which areas are strong and which need to improve, following a logic of continuous improvement in all areas of activity," explains Sílvia Santos, further adding that in Portugal, the UC is certified by the Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES) at different levels. In November 2022, the UC renewed its Certification of Internal Quality Assurance Systems with "outstanding results", placing it "among the best rated institutions".
Internationally, the UC is certified by the International Certification Network to ISO 9001:2015, a global standard that defines the guidelines for the design, implementation and improvement of Quality Management Systems.
Sílvia Santos believes that quality management should lead to continuous self-reflection and self-analysis, allowing the collection of data and indicators that show where we are and where we need to go. UC Rector Amílcar Falcão shares this view. It is always a work in progress, a process of "continuous improvement", regardless of the "very high standards" already achieved, because "we can always do better", he concludes.
Know more about quality at the UC here.