Accreditation of degree programmes

In my first meeting with the academic staff of my new university, the University of Lincoln, there was an exciting discussion about accreditation for our teaching program.

Accreditation concerns an official assessment of our teaching program by external institutions with authority. I can think of industry and government. Therefore, when we think of accreditation, we think of making our teaching standards meet agreed-upon requirements. There are several other benefits of accreditation:

• It is an independent validation that our program attends high standards set for a profession
• It is a framework for continuous regulation, improvement and comparison to other institutions

I've come upon this topic while I was working at Innopolis University. Back then, I wondered about expectations from the industry and our sponsors towards our teaching. For example, since our students would end up working for those companies, which know-how they were expected to know. The first aspect is, therefore, expectation from a job market perspective.

Another aspect regards enabling our faculty and students to apply for governmental grants, which might legally require some background or agreements. For example, should the institution teach following the Bologna System? In this case, accreditations allow the university to participate in contests and projects, which are essential from a prestige and financial perspective.

I've found some interesting readings that I would recommend:

https://www.bcs.org/deliver-and-teach-qualifications/university-accreditation/

https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2014/oct/20/qaa-uk-university-review-critics

https://www.staffordglobal.org/articles-and-blogs/general-articles-and-blogs/accreditation-university-degree/

However, as with everything in life, there are drawbacks. For example, less independence to create and tackle the program. Also, loss of prestige for assessment factors that are out of our reach. What else?

In summary, accreditations validate our teaching to external organizations and can eventually strengthen our hand in attracting students and sponsors. A fascinating insight is that different countries obviously have other accreditation systems. This is something to always consider when moving to a new university, as I am doing now.