Institutional accreditation

About

Royal Decree 640/2021, of 27^th July, on the creation, recognition and authorization of universities and university centers, and institutional accreditation of university centers, regulates the procedure for the institutional accreditation of university centers as an alternative to the model of accreditation of official university degrees regulated in Royal Decree 822/2021, of September 28, which establishes the organization of university education and the procedure for assuring its quality. In its article 14, the aforementioned Royal Decree regulates the institutional accreditation procedure, the requirements that university centers must comply with in order to obtain it, as well as the period of validity of the accreditation, which has been established at six years.

Objective

The main objective of this programme is to generate sufficient confidence in the centers and in their ability to provide training that guarantees the satisfaction of the needs and expectations of the students and of society. This confidence will be supported by transparent public information and accountability.  

Universities whose centers have obtained institutional accreditation will be able, while maintaining their effects, to renew the accreditation of the official programmes they teach without having to undergo the procedure of accreditation renewal per programme.

All the official university programmes corresponding to the accredited center will incorporate as the date of renewal of accreditation in the Register of Universities, Centres and Programmes (RUCT), the date corresponding to the resolution of institutional accreditation of the Council of Universities.

Assessment

The evaluation will be requested from the Council of Universities, which will forward it to the ACPUA.

Initial institutional accreditation is obtained once the centre has an Internal Quality Assurance System whose implementation has been certified by a quality agency and half of the degrees at each level (bachelor's, master's and doctoral) that make up the teaching offer of the centre have successfully passed the evaluation for the renewal of accreditation.

The renewal of institutional accreditation (every six years) is carried out on the basis of a visit to the centre by a panel of experts appointed for this purpose, following the provisions of the document “ACPUA Programme of Renewal of Institutional Accreditation”.

ESG Compliance part 2

SOME KEYS TO INSTITUTIONAL ACCREDITATION

Article by Antonio Serrano, Chief Executive of the ACPUA.

Faculty of Economics and Business' Journal. Universidad de Zaragoza.