AAQ awards first EUR-ACE® Labels
AAQ is now authorized to award the EUR-ACE® (European Accredited Engineering Programme) quality label for engineering degree programmes. Access to this quality commendation is thus guaranteed for accredited Swiss degree programmes as well. The first labels have been awarded and more may follow this year. Applications can be submitted in the first instance by engineering degree programmes which are already accredited under the Swiss Law on Universities of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschulgesetz).
The collaboration between AAQ and the ENAEE (European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education) was instigated by the Conference of Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences in Technology, Architecture and Life Sciences (FTAL). As part of the process of acceptance into the group of authorised agencies, Berchtold von Steiger, a project manager at AAQ, added a new guideline to the Swiss accreditation procedures to make them compatible with the EUR-ACE® Framework Standards. During this process the AAQ (and its predecessor organisation OAQ) worked closely with the University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil (HSR). The degree course concerned must demonstrate the additional EUR-ACE requirements in a brief self-evaluation report.
It was possible to award the EUR-ACE Label to the bachelor degree course in "Renewable Energies and Environmental Technology" at the HSR in February 2015. This programme had been accredited in June 2014 without imposing any requirements as the successful conclusion to the procedure conducted with the OAQ. The HSR subsequently submitted an application for it to be the first degree course to receive the EUR-ACE Label from the Agency. This application was successfully processed in just a few months following a file-based review of the brief report by three experts from the expert group in the accreditation procedure.
The necessary regulations had previously been approved by the ENAEE; these are now available on the AAQ website. All the regulations are available in English (see Downloads); the supplementary report may be written in a national language. Applications may be sent to the AAQ at any time.
The AAQ is using this initiative to expand its professional activities: the field of engineering follows on from specific standards for programme accreditations in the fields of medicine, psychotherapy and music. In principle, however, the AAQ remains an agency with a generalist approach.
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