Swiss Center of Accreditation and Quality Assurance in Higher Education

Swiss Center of Accreditation and Quality Assurance in Higher Education is the organisation responsible for accreditation and evaluation procedures in Switzerland based Higher education. The French for this term is OAQ standing for “Organe d’accréditation et d’assurance qualité des hautes écoles suisses”. It depends of the Swiss University Conference, but is independent, and entitled to deliver accreditation and evaluation procedures.

The organization aims to ensure quality of teaching and research in Swiss based universities through guidelines and quality standards using internationally recognized methods and benefiting from international support as a member of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. The organization specializes in institutional evaluation and has experience developing large scale surveys and performing policy-relevant analysis. Its Director, Rolf Heusser, is also the president of ECA.

As an external partner, OAQ is in charge of insuring a quality culture within Switzerland based academic system. OAQ also helps out with subvention procedures following the "Loi fédérale sur l'encouragement des hautes écoles et la coordination dans le domaine suisse des Hautes Ecoles" (LEHE) as well as being responsible for public universities' audit on quality assurance every 4 years regarding the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).

Among OAQ's different values, trust and respect in higher education institutions’ autonomy and the setting up of a quality development approach for external evaluations are top priorities. Attention is also given to OAQ’s responsibility in higher education’s improvement as well as transparency in OAQ’s procedures and communication. Finally, engagement in mutual skills exchange and international benchmarking for higher education within Europe and beyond, OAQ’s experts integrity and independence, engagement in Swiss multiculturalism and linguistic diversity are also part OAQ's challenges.

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