Annual report 2010 PDF - OAQ Organ für Akkreditierung und ...

Preface
The reporting year 2010 saw changes in the management of the OAQ and a great many
procedures.
In May 2010, the interim director, Dr. Paul Zinsli, handed a well-ordered house over to the
undersigned. The OAQ used this change as an opportunity to review its strategy and aims
at a chaired workshop, one of its objectives being to become fit for purpose after the entry
into force of the Federal Act on the Promotion of Universities and Coordination in the Swiss
Universities Sector (HFKG).
True to the principle that controllers must themselves be controlled, the OAQ will undergo
a stringent external evaluation in 2011: in August 2010, the OAQ applied for the renewal
of its membership of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education
(ENQA). One criterion for ENQA membership is an external assessment of the OAQ for
compliance with the European Standards and Guidelines in Quality Assurance (ESG),
which set out the minimum requirements for quality assurance and accreditation at Euro-
pean level.
In the year under review, the procedures focused on accreditation of postgraduate med-
ical programmes on the basis of the Medical Professions Act and on behalf of the
Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH). During the year, the OAQ conducted a total of
50 procedures in the medical sector.
A second area on which the procedures focussed was that of the universities of applied
sciences with a total of 16 procedures.
In the universities sector, the OAQ conducted three procedures in 2010. The synthesis
report on the Quality Audits 2007/8, which the OAQ completed in December 2010 in order
to be considered for the meeting of the Swiss Universities Conference (SUC) in January
2011, brought the second cycle of Quality Audits to a conclusion as far as the role of the
OAQ was concerned.
After the OAQ had obtained definitive recognition by the German Accreditation Council
for Procedures in Germany, negotiations were put in hand with two prestigious universities
on a system accreditation. Both procedures are expected to begin in the second half of
2011.
Dr. Christoph Grolimund
Director
Annual Report 2010
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