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CONFEDERATION OF EUROPEAN AEROSPACE SOCIETIES





YAPC. Recognition of University Degrees

Official Recognition in SPAIN of University Degrees awarded abroad.

1. HOMOLOGACIÓN : What is it ?

Homologación of an university degree is the word given in Spain to the process and subsequent certificate issued by the Spanish Ministry of Education by which a degree ( undergraduate or postgraduate ) awarded by a non-Spanish university to person ( Spanish or foreign ) becomes officially and fully recognised as the equivalent of a Spanish-awarded degree.

Now, why should this be of interest to anybody ? Well, if you are a foreign graduate wishing to move to Spain to work and conduct your career in our country, or if you are a Spanish citizen returning to your country after having graduated at a foreign university, it certainly is a relevant matter. The reason for this is that, in spite of recent EU legislation and intentions at this respect, it remains a fact that in order to work fully legally in Spain on certain jobs which demand a university degree, your academic qualifications have to be accepted as valid by the Spanish Ministry of Education ( SMoE ). You can achieve this through two different paths : 1 ) either by graduating from a Spanish university and hence have your degree awarded to you directly by the SMoE, or 2 ) by presenting your foreign degree to the SMoE and have them issuing an Homologación certificate by which they recognise and state that your degree is the equivalent of one awarded by them in Spain. It is this " path 2 " that we will focus on in this report.

You may also wonder if it is really necessary to obtain the Homologación of your degree. What if you do not have it ?. You can certainly work and conduct your career in Spain anyway, and many people work as engineers or other professionals without having had their university degrees officially recognised by the Spanish government. However :

Henceforth, it may be concluded that if you are planning to work in Spain for a short period of time ( a couple of years or so ), it is not really worth it to do it, but if you are thinking about settling down, we would advice you to do it. You have nothing to loose but have much to gain by applying for it.

2. How to obtain the Homologación of your university degree ?

Given the fact that an Homologación is a bureaucratic process that you have to undergo with the SMoE, it tends to be cumbersome, very slow and seemingly complicated, but the explanations given here should somehow ease the way.

In the homologation process, the SMoE will study the documents you present them with and use them to consider whether your academic qualifications match those required in Spain to award the degree for which you want yours recognised. They will henceforth be looking for at two main issues :

The list of documents and procedures required by the SMoE in order to consider a request for an Homologación is as follows :

  1. An original certificate of the university that awarded your degree. This certificate must state at least your full name, the full name of your degree, the number of years or courses it consists of, and the dates in which you studied it.
  2. An original certificate of the university that awarded your degree stating, year by year, all the subjects, courses and project that you had to study or conduct for your degree.
  3. These two certificates must be signed by a Public Notary from the country in which the degree is awarded.
  4. Then these two certificates must have the Apostille of the Hague Convention stamped on them at the country in which the degree was awarded. Where and how the Apostille is given varies from country to country, so you will have to ask, but it is usually done by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Department of State.
  5. Once in Spain these two documents must be translated into the Spanish language by an official translator ( traductor jurado ).
  6. Also, you will have to compile all the syllabuses ( as accurate and specific as possible ) of all the subjects / courses you studied and passed for your degree, and enclose this with the rest of the documentation. These syllabuses need not undergo the actions described in points 3 and 4 above, and if they are in English, you should not need to translate them into Spanish either. Enclose also a description of your Final Year Project if you did one.
  7. Photocopy of a valid identity document ( for example, passport or national ID card ).

All these certificates, translations and syllabuses must be presented to the Spanish Ministry of Education at the Sección de Convalidaciones de Estudios Extrangeros Universitarios, which is located at Paseo del Prado 28, Madrid.

Tips for your application :

  1. Do not present your application papers in a loose form. Have them all stapled together, and proper binding is even better. This way you will not run the risk of any paper separating from the rest and getting lost.
  2. Make sure you do not submit your application until you have all the required documents; this will spare you from unnecessary delays.
  3. Feel free to include any supporting documentation in your application, such as brief statements of work conducted at industrial stages or internships during your studies, brief description of academic prices or honours achieved, etc. But be careful not to overdo it ( i.e. SMoE will not care whether you were the captain of you university basketball team or if you play piano, so please do not mention it ! ).
  4. There is no fee charged by the SMoE for carrying out the study of your homologation application or for issuing you with the certificate should it be accepted.

3.What happens then ?

Your application containing all the above mentioned papers will be checked by the SMoE to see that you have included all the documents required in the way they demand. Then they will send it to the Consejo de Universidades ( Universities Council ), which is the office that will look deeper into it and finally decide upon it. Once they have reached a decision, they will send it back to the SMoE, which will then contact you sometime later.

Be very patient; the Homologation process normally takes a long time to be carried out, and periods of 9 months to a year for a reply to be given to you are not uncommon. Once they get back to you, they may tell you on of these four things :

  1. You have not presented the right documents / all the documents / etc. Hence, see what is missing and supply it to them.
  2. Your application has been accepted and your degree has been declared as valid, your degree has been homologated and from this moment onwards you are officially regarded in Spain as an university graduate. You will be given an original certificate by the SMoE stating so. Do not loose it or depart from it. It is very complicated to get another copy of it from the SMoE and in Spain this is the only document, and not any other foreign one you may have, that officially proves that you have your degree.
  3. Your application has been partially accepted. Your degree is considered valid overall but the SMoE considers that your degree did not include some topics which are studied in its Spanish equivalent. You are hence required to register at a Spanish university to take a handful of exams corresponding to these missing subjects. Once you have passed these exams in Spain you present a certificate from the university stating so and you get the Homologación for your degree.
  4. Your application is rejected outright.

4. Where to get further advice ?

This brief report hopes to have clarified some of the main concepts and procedures relating to the Homologación process, but you may have specific questions or problems not addressed here. In order to get further advice you may turn to one of the following :

Information last updated on 10th October 1997

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Created by YAPC-SPAIN. COIAE. Comisión de Desarrollo Profesional.1997.