STANDARDS

The application must include proof that the following general requirements and basic criteria will be fulfilled according to § 2 University Accreditation Act (UniAkkG). To ensure the comparability and validity of the quality assessment, the ÖAR defined the areas to be evaluated by the external experts. These areas are laid down in the Guidelines for Experts.

Interpreting the legal provisions of the University Accreditation Act the ÖAR published Guidelines which must be considered when devising applications for accreditation.

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

Legal form and headquarters: The applicant institution must be a legal person based in Austria.

Suitable range of studies:

Appropriate curricula have to be submitted with the application:

- The applicant institution must offer at least two academic programmes,

- The academic programmes must result in an academic degree, in accordance with international standards for full-time programmes of at least three years,

- The academic programmes must be offered in one or more academic or artistic discipline(s), or follow on from other academic programmes (i.e. postgraduate programmes).

Comparable study standards: If a private university intends to award the same academic degrees as those awarded at public universities, the programme must be comparable to the corresponding public academic programmes in terms of their overall educational result.

Teaching staff: The qualifications of teaching staff at private universities must correspond to international academic and artistic standards.

At the time of application, legally binding preliminary contracts must already exist between the institution and its teaching staff. These preliminary contracts must include sufficient detail to cover the planned academic programmes.

Equipment: All the equipment necessary for teaching the proposed academic programmes (including personnel and space and material resources) must be available from the moment the course is due to begin (e.g. computers, library facilities etc). Institutions must ensure that they are equipped in an appropriate way for the kind of education they plan to offer.

At the time of application, the necessary proof of personnel, space and material equipment must be supplied.

Principles: The educational institution must carry out its activities according to the following principles (for general citizens’ rights, see the Federal Constitution RGBl.Nr. 142/1867):

- The freedom of the sciences and their teaching;

- The freedom of the arts, the propagation of the arts and their teaching;

- The interrelationship of research and teaching; and

- The diversity of artistic and academic theories, methods and schools of thought.

Titles and descriptions:

§ 3 UniAkkG (University Accreditation Act) states that the educational institution has the right to use the name “private university “.

Academic degrees from private universities have the same legal status as those from public universities.

BASIC CRITERIA

Several of the criteria named in § 2 UniAccAct have been interpreted and explained by the Accreditation Council as follows:

• Academic freedom
  The private university must be autonomous and guarantee academic freedom.  In its constitution and organizational structure it must ensure freedom in a given area of research (regarding the issues addressed, theories and methods as well as the dissemination of research findings and their evaluation) and freedom of teaching (regarding the diversity of the thematic and methodological structure of courses as well as the right to express opinions in science and art) (§ 2 sec. 1 Z 5 UniAccAct) 

• Scope and diversity
  The institution (according to § 2 sec. 1 UniAccAct) should have a broad and diverse range of study offerings oriented after the European concept of the university (§ 2 sec. 1 Z 5 UniAccAct). Traditional areas such as medicine, music, law or theology or newer combinations of fields with a comparable breadth may be considered as disciplines. 

• Research at the institution
  Research must take place at the institution. This requires the presence of a critical mass (see item 4) with production of knowledge at the institution and adequate feedback from teaching. (§ 2 sec. 1 Z 5 UniAccAct)

• Academic staff
  The institution must have a permanent academic or artistic staff employed for a period of at least two years with at least a part-time contract. This permanent staff must cover at least 50% of the entire teaching load of a course of study and be qualified (Ph.D. or artistic achievements). To ensure the connection of research and teaching this permanent staff must have at least three members per study course with at least one being a full-time position and fulfilling the requirements required for a professorship. This means that this member of the faculty must have adequately high academic or artistic qualifications. (§ 2 sec. 1 Z 3 UniAccAct)

• Staff selection procedure
  The procedure for selecting the entire academic staff must be transparent, competitive and quality-oriented (§ 1 sec. 1 Z 3 and 4 of the UniAccAct) 

• Study plan
  Study plans (detailed curricula) and examination plans must meet material, formal and discipline-related standards. Admission to study must correspond at minimum to the Austrian regulations governing general admission requirements (§ 2 sec. 1 Z 2) 

• Facilities and equipment
  Facilities and equipment are understood as being the provision of adequate study means/material in compliance with international standards. (§ 2 sec. 1 Z 4 UniAccAct) 

• Financing
  A detailed business plan must be submitted as evidence for mid-term financing of the institution. (§ 2 sect. 1 Z 3 and 4 UniAccAct). 

• Development plan
  The institution in question must describe the fulfillment of the requirements named in Z 1 to 8i in a development plan made for a period of three years.

AREAS TO BE EVALUATED

• Guidelines for Experts (Institutions)
• Guidelines for Experts (Academic Programmes)

top