Norway

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
    Norway has been a Governmental Member of EQAR since June 2008.

    Map: EHEA countries by governmental membership

  • General information on higher education

    Higher education is provided at universities, specialised university institutions, university colleges, university colleges of arts, other public university colleges not under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and Research, and private higher education institutions.

    Higher education is offered at the three cycle degree system, with the exception of a number of short cycle study programmes.

    The regulation governing quality assurance and quality development in higher education and tertiary vocational education is set down in the Regulation no. 96, of February 2010 .

  • National external quality assurance requirements

    Higher education in Norway fall into different external QA requirements as follows:

    • universities and specialised university institution have the authority to self-accredit at all levels.

    university colleges may self-accredit their first cycle (BA). If university colleges had their third cycle accredited (PhD) they can also accredit their second cyle (MA) within their doctoral fields.

    university colleges without institutional accreditation must have all their educational provisions accredited.

    • Initial institutional accreditation
      gives universities and colleges certain rights to award national degrees or diplomas.

    • Programme accreditation
      required for non-accredited university colleges on all levels and for university colleges or specialised university institutions that wish to establish a new doctoral or master programme outside their doctoral fields.

    • Audit
      carried out at least once in 8 years. The right to self-accredit programmes is conditional upon a positive evaluation of the higher education institution's internal QA system (audit).

  • 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

  • Cross-border quality assurance

    Not recognising foreign agencies as part of the national external QA requirements

  • European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes

    European Approach available to some higher education institutions or only under specific conditions

    The European Approach is available to institutions not subject to programme accreditation.

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


Registered agencies operating in Norway