Higher education institutions today face a number of challenges as they strive to fulfil their critical role in society (http://www.eua.be/iep/Home.aspx).
These include increased autonomy, competition for staff and students, internationalisation, declining public investment, additional activities and curriculum reforms. The Institutional Evaluation Programme (IEP) offers institutions support as they face these challenges, manage institutional change and enhance quality.
IEP has provided external evaluation services to higher education institutions in the context of their own aims and profiles since 1994. To date, IEP evaluation teams have carried out around 300 evaluations and follow-up evaluations of diverse higher education institutions in 45 countries worldwide. On request of local stakeholders in higher education (ministries, national rectors’ conferences, NGOs), IEP also conducts coordinated evaluations at the national or regional level.
The Institutional Evaluation Programme (IEP) is an independent membership service of the European University Association (EUA). IEP is a full member of ENQA(the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education) and is listed in EQAR(the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education).
EUA/IEP evaluates the international universities registered by ENQA in Europe. This organization has evaluated more than 300 universities in 45 countries of which 28 are in Turkey. Turkish universities have an effective role in this institution which has contributed extensively to improve quality culture, quality management and quality assurance in education, research and civil service in European universities.
Within the framework of EUA Institutional Evaluation Programme, Higher education, institutions will be assessed in detail by a group that consists of experienced higher education leaders. The procedures and processes in these universities will be benchmarked considering the best international application and necessary advice will be given to those universities in order to improve and sustain the development potential, and the development of inner quality culture and strategic management.
In order to help universities to reach their goals of education and research in their fields , the aim of this programme is to;
- spread quality culture in the university,
- strengthen the institutional structure and change,
- increase universities’ accountability by their self-assessment.
Institutional evaluation programme looks for answers to these questions:
- What is the institution trying to do?
- How is it trying to do this?
- How does it understand whether this works or not?
- How does the institution change to improve?
- How does it contribute to develop and improve?
- How does it evaluate the capacity of change evaluating decision making process, organizational structure and functions?
The institutions that are evaluated within this Institutional Evaluation Programme the following units and processes are examined and given advice.
- Academic Units
- Research Management
- Management Processes
- Students Affairs
- Relations with Shareholders
- Relationships between Administration and Faculties
- Internationalization Policies