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/).
  • Membership in EQAR
    Austria has been a Governmental Member of EQAR since February 2008.

    Read more: all Governmental Members of EQAR

  • 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

  • Cross-border quality assurance

    In Austria higher education institutions may choose a suitable EQAR-registered agency.

    • 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 Science, Research and Economy.

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

    Read more: countries where higher education institutions may choose a suitable EQAR-registered agency

  • European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes

    In Austria the European Approach is available to 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).

    Read more: countries where the European Approach is available to higher education institutions

  • Further information

Registered agencies operating in Austria