The Spanish Society of Academic Excellence (
Spanish: Sociedad Española de Excelencia Académica - SEDEA) is a Spanish society to promote and disseminate academic excellence and talent.
History
It was founded in 2019 and its objective is to identify and accredit the best university graduates in Spain and highlight their talent.[1][2][3][4]
Among its functions, in 2019 SEDEA created the National Ranking of the Best Graduates in Spain to recognize the best graduates in the country in each academic discipline. Candidates are selected by a committee of more than 30 professors, researchers and experts in each area of knowledge, classifying the brightest graduates of each degree with a multi-parametric curricular evaluation. The final average grade of the academic record is the factor with the most specific weight in the final assessment. However, more factors are taken into account: having obtained the
honorary distinction at the Baccalaureate award at the
Spanish Baccalaureate degree, having obtained
honours at university subjects, having obtained the
Bachelor's Degree Extraordinary Award, awards or distinctions achieved, international or collaboration scholarships, academic contests or competitions, languages, conducting courses, participating in conferences, lectures at conferences, publications, student representation, volunteering, social commitment and, in general, any other academic merit.[5][6][7][8][9]
Membership
The society is of limited membership with requirements to access it. To apply for membership in SEDEA, it is an essential prerequisite to have an average grade higher than 8.00 out of 10.00 (3.2 out of 4.00) in the university academic record of the
bachelor's degree (for the sole purpose of being able to apply for membership), for which a verification and accreditation process is followed by society, through the evaluation of the academic trajectory and curricular by the Evaluation Committee of the society. In addition, other merits obtained by the applicant during their training and career are taken into account (awards, publications...). Once you have been admitted, you obtain the status of full member or numerary member.
On the other hand, those people who apply for admission to the society, but do not meet the requirements and are not selected by the evaluation committee, can still obtain "non-member user" status.[10] These "users" will only be able to participate in initiatives that are open to "non-member users".[10]
Evaluation Committee
The Spanish Society of Academic Excellence has an evaluation committee made up of different experts belonging to different areas of knowledge, which evaluates the excellence of each candidate in the society. Among the experts who are part of the committee are the following, among others:[11]
Carmen Caffarel, linguist and professor of Spanish audiovisual communication, general director of
RTVE and director of the
Cervantes Institute
Fernando Broncano, Spanish philosopher and professor of Logic and Philosophy
Luisa María Frutos Mejías, Spanish geographer
Ignacio Aguaded, professor at the University of Huelva (Spain)
Rafael Calduch, university professor and politician
Eugenio Santos, a Spanish microbiologist, professor of microbiology and director and principal investigator of the Cancer Research Center
Eduardo Vírgala, professor of constitutional law
Members
Among the members of the Spanish Society of Academic Excellence, to which they belong as full member or numerary members, are, among others: