System Accreditation
Well-functioning Quality Management
The University of Bremen received system accreditation by the Swiss agency AAQ on 16 September 2016. Currently, the university is in the reaccreditation process. The accreditation period is extended until the completion of the procedure.
One of the main aspects of quality management at the University of Bremen is that it offers sufficient scope for subject-specific features. Quality objectives and the accordant measures are organized in decentralized responsibility in the respective areas of teaching and learning in the subjects and Faculties. Together with the University Leadership, this leads to the development of cross-faculty quality objectives. Quality management is characterized by the pursuit of continuous improvement to learning and study conditions.
All the University’s Faculties have developed quality loops which served as a starting point for the development of the University-wide quality assurance system. In addition, the University of Bremen has already been successfully audited in several other areas and faces up to the challenges of quality management in other important dimensions.
The further development of quality management at the University of Bremen is to:
- strengthen the autonomy and controllability of the University of Bremen by anchoring responsibility for the conception, design and further development of the University’s study programs;
- Develop the existing mechanisms of quality assurance in teaching jointly and in partnership with the Faculties, and thus contribute to the improvement of the quality of studies and better documentation of our achievements in teaching.
Explanation of terms
The objective of the system accreditation is examination of the internal quality assurance system of a higher education institution in the area of teaching and learning. The structures and processes relevant to teaching and learning are scrutinized to see whether they guarantee attainment of the qualification objectives and a high quality of study programs. The accreditation conforms to the standards laid down by the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ESG), the provisions of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK), and the criteria of the Accreditation Council (AR).
A positive system accreditation attests to the fact that the University’s system of quality assurance in the area of teaching and learning is suitable to ensure achievement of the qualification objectives and the quality standards of their study programs. This means: It certifies whether the University is capable of ensuring compliance with all criteria of program accreditation by means of ongoing internal and external processes. Programs which are established on the basis of system accreditation or which have already been the subject of internal quality assurance according to the specifications of the accredited system are thus accredited. (See Rules for the Accreditation of Study Courses and for System Accreditation, decision of the Accreditation Council of 08.12.2009, last modified on 20.02.2013).