Institutional accreditation and certification of university centre´s internal quality assurance systems and courses´ in-house (ELENCHOS programme)

The Real Decreto 640/2021, de 27 de julio, de creación, reconocimiento y autorización de universidades y centros universitarios, y acreditación institucional de centros universitarios (245 kbytes) governing the creation, recognition, authorisation and accreditation of universities and university centres, establishes the institutional accreditation of university centres, based on which the special procedure for renewal of accreditation of official degrees is included in Royal Decree 1393/2007, of 29 October establishing the organisation of official university courses, as an alternative to the general procedure for degrees corresponding to centres that have obtained institutional accreditation.

The procedure for institutional accreditation, regulated by Resolution of 3 March 2022 of the General Secretary for universities, and through which instructions are given on the procedure for institutional accreditation of public and private university centres, involves an application to the university quality assurance agency in the autonomous region in which the university is located, said agency being listed in the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education, (EQAR) , as is ACSUCYL. After the assessment process has been carried out, ACSUCYL will publish a binding report for the University Council, who shall then issue a decision on the matter.

As requirements to obtain institutional accreditation, university centres must on the one hand have renewed initial accreditation of at least half of the official bachelor's and master's degrees they teach, in accordance with the general procedure, and on the other have obtained certification of the implementation of their internal quality assurance system (IQAS), awarded by a university quality assurance agency after having successfully undergone an assessment process conducted in accordance with the protocol for certification of the IQAS established by the General Conference for University Policy.

In an effort to avoid duplicating assessment processes, ACSUCYL has aligned the assessment criteria for the certification of IQAS implementation and institutional accreditation, coordinating the two processes in the ELENCHOS programme (Greek term equivalent to the Latin “audit”).

• ELENCHOS PROGRAMME: Framework document. Criteria, standards, and assessment bodies. (1.165 kbytes)
• ELENCHOS PROGRAMME: Stage I: Certification procedure for implementing university centres’ internal quality assurance systems and certification of courses’ in-house IQAS design. (789 kbytes)
• ELENCHOS PROGRAMME: Stage II: Procedure for initial institutional accreditation of university centres. (742 kbytes)
• Procedimiento para la evaluación de los casos de títulos impartidos en varios centros en el marco de la Acreditación Institucional. (535 kbytes)

ACSUCYL conducts assessment of the files through the Institutional Quality Assessment Committee ,which is responsible amongst other tasks for:  

• Planning and coordinating the assessment process.
• Designing, approving and publishing the assessment criteria and methods.
• Adopting joint final assessment decisions.

In order to perform its tasks, the committee seeks the advice of experts who form Paneles Evaluadores (81 kbytes) who act jointly.

The work undertaken by the members of the committee and the experts in the panels is subject to the Agency's Ethical code (542 kbytes) .

Registry of university centers with ELENCHOS certificate of implementation of the IQAS .

• Informes de evaluación para la acreditación institucional de centros universitarios. (160 kbytes)
• Informes de evaluación de certificación del diseño del SIGC de enseñanzas propias. (404 kbytes)