ZEvA Expert

Quality development is becoming increasingly significant for higher education institutions. Awareness is growing that current methods of quality assurance are largely about checking compliance with external standards and are therefore only of limited value in terms of quality management.
Quality management needs to be regarded as an integral part of professional higher education management and as a central task of strategic leadership. External accreditation standards may be significant with regard to aspects of “consumer protection” and certain controlling functions in the higher education sector. At present, however, priority should be given to the establishment of a quality management system that involves all participating parties within the higher education institutions as well as their stakeholders.

Quality management is part of a higher education institution’s overall strategy and impacts all functional areas and processes (research, teaching, the promotion of young researchers, continuing education and transfer). Also, it facilitates institutional self-governance and success in national and international competition.

ZEvA supports quality-conscious institutions in building up a comprehensive quality management system that goes beyond fulfilling the criteria for system accreditation. For this purpose, the agency has created the new unit “ZEvA Expert”. Part of this is the recent appointment of a council of experts by the ZEvA Board of Directors. The council consists of experienced institutional leaders, administrators and quality management experts and aims at developing model solutions and concepts for quality management. Also, the members of the council can act as project consultants to higher education institutions.