This paper is part of a broader line of research, addressed through two research projects, titled "The influence of neoliberalism on academic identities and the level of professional satisfaction" (PID2019-105631GA-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033), and "New teaching staff in Andalusian universities: quantified and digitized academic identities" (B-SEJ-534-UGR20),  granted by the State Research Agency of the Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Andalusian Agency for Knowledge and Universities of the Andalusian Ministry.

The aim of this paper is to find out the perception and level of satisfaction of academics with evaluation systems. From the end of the last century to the present day, Higher Education has undergone great changes in a continuous process of neoliberalization. In Europe, the transformation of universities has been driven by the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The Bologna Process identified as key issues the promotion of quality, mobility, diversity and competitiveness, in order to contribute to the growth of employability in the European Union and, as a consequence, of the economy. 

The values that supported universities in their origin have also changed compared to those that have been installed in recent decades. At this regard, traditional ideals based on autonomy and academic freedom are being significantly threatened (Clarke, Hyde and Drennan, 2013; Harland, 2009). 

The set of policies implemented to achieve common standards in the achievement of competitive Higher Education has given hegemonic power to academic capitalism. In this context, knowledge and education become a commodity, and the type of knowledge that is being generated under these premises begins to be a topic of debate.

Therefore, we find the university ceases to be a place of generation of knowledge and service to society, to focus and assume as a basic principle of subsistence: production.  This need is naturalized and transmitted to academics through evaluation systems based on control, accountability and managerialism; thus creating a new professional culture.  Many relevant studies analyze the impact of neoliberalism on Higher Education and how we have become neoliberal academic subjects (Archer, 2008; Ball, 2012; Harland, 2009; McCowan, 2017; Tight, 2019; Saura and Bolívar, 2019). 

In Spain, the Bologna Process was implemented through LOU in 2001. This Law incorporated extensive modifications in the academic evaluation system. Among them, ANECA is created as an entity to evaluate, certify and accredit academics according to their teaching, research and management activities (LOU, 2001, art. 31.2.c.) as a previous step to obtain a position or promote through different contractual typologies in the university. Later, the LOMLOU in 2007 included some changes in academic evaluation and accreditation. Access to different categories was still linked to prior and external accreditation by ANECA, although the evaluation criteria increased progressively, especially with regard to research production. Some studies have been critical in this regard (Caballero, 2013; Delgado, 2018; Díez-Gutiérrez, 2018). Now with LOSU (2022) the evaluation and accreditation model is consolidated, based fundamentally on the development of research, but especially focused on scientific production in journals that, in the end, are controlled by private companies. Therefore, to access and promote in the Spanish university, the merits of research are a priority compared to those related to teaching. 

Likewise, the need to control and measure productivity has led to the use of metrics that have been accepted and naturalized as the appropriate process to measure quality, generating what we can call Digital Academic Capitalism (Saura and Caballero, 2021).

Our research is based on a sequential mixed design of quantitative and qualitative methodologies as parallel processes to understand the same social reality. While the quantitative research tries to determine the association or correlation among variables and the generalisation of outcomes through a representative sample, the qualitative research is aimed to identify the deep nature of realities and the system of relations through narrative discourses. A complementary use of both methods, as triangulation procedure, will allow a closer approach to the object of study, compensating the deficiencies of one with the riches of the other. The analysis will culminate with the integration of quantitative and qualitative perspectives (Creswell, 2017). The population of this research is formed by academics from the nine public Spanish universities located at the south of the country (Andalusia). A quant-qual sequential sampling phase was carried out. The size of the population was requested to the General Secretariat of Universities, Research and Technology of the Andalusian Ministry. According to the data that were provided, the population was composed by 17.673 academics. In order to achieve the objectives designed, the qualitative and quantitative research techniques that guided our process of research were the following: -Survey. A questionnaire was designed, validated and administered to all the population to gather information on academics’ perception and satisfaction with the evaluation system. From the accepting sample, an information-producing sample of 2183 subjects was obtained. This final sample represents 12.4% of the population, with a sampling error of 1.96 for a 95% confidence interval. Non statistically significant differences were found in the distributions of the sample and the population according to universities (p = 0.72), when applying the Mann-Whitney U. -Narrative inquiry. To study how academics build their identities, eighteen biographical-narrative interviews were carried out (Bolívar & Domingo, 2019). Through narratives, subjects interpret their experiences making it personally meaningful; it is the way of thinking about experience that gives a profound and subjective view of the phenomena (Clandinin, 2013). Subjects gave voice to create meaning from their own professional and personal experience. An approach to academic perceptions, opinions, feelings and interpretations of a specific social reality allows a deeper comprehension of the object of study and the results obtained through the questionnaire. The participants were chosen taking into consideration the balanced combination of criteria as gender, age, family situation, academic rank and scientific branch.

Based on the results obtained, we conclude that academics’ identity and the type of work they perform are influenced by the evaluation systems and, in particular, by the criteria established as evidence of quality at work. Academics consider these evaluation criteria do not adequately reflect the quality of their professional work, both teaching and research, which leads them to feel a low level of satisfaction with the evaluation systems. On the other hand, the evaluation processes linked to accountability promote the constant performativity of academics. They consider this situation causing a negative impact on their health and in the time dedicated to their family and personal life, which also produces them a low level of satisfaction. At this regard, evaluation systems in Higher Education must guarantee a real quality at the same time that give freedom to academics to develop their own professional paths. Academics cannot substitute by numbers their will and the contribution to its discipline, students and society. We need to find the neoliberalism cracks in order to develop progressive transformative actions (Harland, 2009; Sutton, 2015). Different authors have focused their works in exploring ways of resistance to the neoliberal Higher Education (Giroux, 2011; Ross, Savage & Watson, 2020; Shahjahan, 2019; Sutton, 2015). All of them claim the resistance to the neoliberalism and a shift towards a system that promotes critical democracy and equity in society.

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