System accreditation enables higher education institutions to demonstrate comprehensive internal quality assurance and development of the study programmes they offer in order to be able to accredit them themselves in the future - without the involvement of external agencies. At the end of the multi-stage procedure, in the course of which a commissioned agency assesses the university's internal quality management according to the principle of peer review, the quality seal of the Accreditation Council is awarded.
The HNU passed this procedure in the scheduled time and without any conditions: The assessing agency ZEvA (Central Evaluation and Accreditation Agency, Hanover) certified the university's fulfilment of both formal and subject-related criteria; the Accreditation Council granted the system accreditation retroactively from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2031.
Proof of a mature quality management system
"The system accreditation is an enormous developmental step for HNU," says HNU President Prof. Dr. Uta M. Feser. "As proof of our mature quality management system, it now gives us the freedom to independently ensure and further develop our study quality."
The accreditation was preceded by an extensive three-year process, in the course of which a separate organisational unit - the central quality management in studies and teaching - was founded and a corresponding team was formed. In accordance with the overall organisational character of the system accreditation, the Quality Management System (QMS) team consists of the Vice-President for Studies and Teaching, the deans of the faculties, the QM representative of the Centre for Continuing Education (ZfW), the head of the Department of Studies as well as employees of the central quality management. The Vice-President for Continuing Education, the deans, numerous teachers, students and administrative staff were also involved in the entire process and the inspections. The evalag (Evaluation Agency Baden-Württemberg) acted as an advisory service provider. In the course of this process, the quality management system was optimised with instruments and tools such as, among others, an overarching feedback regulation, process data sheets and a central template for module descriptions.
"We have the ambition to offer our students the best possible study quality and have therefore invested accordingly in the development and expansion of our quality management," sums up Vice President Prof. Dr. Julia Kormann, who was in charge of the system accreditation. "We are particularly pleased that we are one of the few universities to be accredited without any conditions - this is a great confirmation of our intensive work in the area of QM."
Next steps: towards international accreditation
The two HNU Bachelor's programmes Information Management and Corporate Communication (IMUK) and Information Management Automotive (IMA) are already internally accredited. The next steps in quality management in teaching and learning include a revision of the teaching mission statement, the internal accreditation of all degree programmes at HNU up to the targeted system re-accreditation in 2031, the monitoring of changes in degree programmes and the establishment of new degree programmes via QM, as well as the digitalisation of module handbooks and a pre-check for international accreditation.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Julia Kormann
