Austria

image/svg+xml Map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) Map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) A blank map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and countries fully surrounded by the EHEA. Every country has an id which is its ISO-3116-1-ALPHA2 code in lower case. Members of the EU have a class="eu", all EHEA countries have a class="europe", non-EHEA countries have a class="nonehea". Image based on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_map_of_Europe_(with_disputed_regions).svg by Júlio "Tintazul" Reis and Marian "maix" Sigler. Made by Colin Tück, EQAR, 2017 Released under CreativeCommons Attribution ShareAlike (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/).
  • Governmental membership
    Austria has been a Governmental Member of EQAR since February 2008.

    Map: EHEA countries by governmental membership

  • General information on higher education

    Austrian higher education system include public universities offering bachelor, master, doctoral or various forms of diploma degrees, universities of applied sciences providing specifically vocational education and training at bachelor and master level and university colleges of teacher education offering bachelor and masters degree programmes for teaching credentials for the primary and secondary education sector.

  • National external quality assurance requirements

    • Institutional and initial programme accreditation
      Private higher education institutions

    • Own methodology
      University colleges of teacher education

    • Institutional audit
      Public universities; universities of applied sciences after an uninterrupted accreditation period of 12 years

    • Institutional and initial programme accreditation
      Universities of applied sciences

  • EHEA key commitment

    Fully aligned with the ESG

    A fully functioning quality assurance system is in operation nationwide, in which all higher education institutions are subject to regular external quality assurance by an agency that has successfully demonstrated compliance with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG) through registration on EQAR

    Map: implementation of the EHEA key commitment

  • Cross-border quality assurance

    Recognising EQAR-registered agencies as part of the national external QA requirements

    • Public universities: yes.
    • Universities of applied science: yes, after having been re-accredited by the national Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation Austria (AQ Austria)
    • Private higher education institutions & university colleges of teacher education: no.  

    See point §19 of the Act on Quality Assurance in Higher Education – HS-QSG

    • Eligibility requirements for foreign agencies: registration on EQAR; QA agencies have to also submit an expression of interest to the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research.

    • Conditions for the agencies’ work (e.g. criteria to be used): compliance with the criteria by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research.​

    Map: recognition of cross-border quality assurance

  • European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes

    European Approach available to all higher education institutions

    • Public universities: yes (due to “self-accrediting” status of their programmes they are able to employ the European Approach)
    • Universities of applied sciences, private higher education institutions, yes. If such a degree programme is offered as a joint study programme with one or several recognised foreign post-secondary educational institutions, AQ Austria may employ the European Approach or recognise the procedure (see the 2021 amendment to the Act on Quality Assurance in Higher Education – HS-QSG, § 23 4b and § 24 5b).

    Map: availability of the European Approach for QA of Joint Programmes

  • Permalink
    https://data.deqar.eu/country/10
  • Further information

Registered agencies operating in Austria