International Accreditation
The Accreditation Process
The Accreditation Process
The project is designed as a long term process. The first step was the initial accreditation of the study program International Management B.A.. Now, the Master's program in International Business and Management M.A. is also seeking international accreditation. As in the national accreditation, re-accreditations are scheduled at regular intervals (3 or 5 years) after the initial accreditation in order to be able to continue to use the EFMD Accredited quality seal.
The international accreditation was part of the 2019 – 2023 internationalization program, which passed the Faculty Council in 2019, as one element for achieving the Faculty’s internationalization goals. Since the summer semester 2020, the Internationalization Project Office has been responsible for preparing and coordinating the international accreditation process. Since October 2022, the International Faculty Office has continued to advance this process and has successfully completed the initial accreditation of the International Management B.A. program.
The formal process of international program accreditation by the EFMD has several stages and is divided into six phases:
- Phase 1: Preparation of the EFMD datasheet and coordination with the EFMD
- Phase 2: Eligibility check by the EFMD on the basis of the datasheet
- Phase 3: Positive eligibility decision: writing of the self-assessment report based on the 5 EFMD standards and related criteria
- Phase 4: On-site visit by a Peer Review Team consisting of an international team of experts
- Phase 5: Accreditation decision by EFMD
- Phase 6: Re-accreditation after 3, resp. 5 years
- Summer semester 2020: Preparation of the initial accreditation
- Winter semester 2020/21: Exploratory phase
- Summer semester 2021: Approval by the Faculty's committees, EFMD membership
- Winter semester 2021/22: Start of the formal process (datasheet)
- Summer semester 2022: Submission of first version of the datasheet
- Winter semester 2022/23: Revision of the datasheet
- January - May 2023: Pre-eligibility phase (advisor)
- 23 May 2023: Positive eligibility decision by EFMD
- June 2023 - winter semester 2024/25: Self-Assessment Phase: Compiling of self-assessment report (SAR)
- 4 February 2025: Submission of documents (SAR, Datasheet and Student Report) to EFMD
- 18 March 2025: Access to the Base Room for the peers and EFMD
- 1-3 April 2025: Peer Review Visit (PRV)
- 17 June 2025: Final accreditation decision by the EFMD Accreditation Board
The milestone planning for the project is therefore based on these phases (German only):
Milestone planning – Overview EFMD phases
Current project status: Completed
In addition to the provision of university, Faculty and program-related data in the datasheet, the accreditation process includes an intensive self-evaluation (SAR phase, phase 3), which is conducted based on the EFMD standards and criteria. In the course of this process, the degree program checks compliance with the standards and criteria and implements them where necessary. On the one hand, continuous self-evaluation takes place in internal processes in the study program's steering committee. In addition, three working groups (WGs), consisting of various stakeholders, worked in the winter semester 2023/24 and summer semester 2024 on answering the EFMD criteria and compiling the texts for the self-evaluation report:
- WG 1: Strategy, university and Faculty context
- WG 2: Criteria specific to the degree program
- WG 3: Quality management
In the summer semester 2024, students of the degree program created the third component for the Peer Review Visit (PRV), the student report, in addition to the datasheet and the self-evaluation report. Also based on EFMD criteria, ten IM students wrote the report completely independently, which meets the EFMD requirements.
- since winter semester 2025/26: work on the Strategic Development Objectives and further comments of the Peer Review Team
- since winter semester 2025/26: Preparing for initial accreditation