France

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
    France has been a Governmental Member of EQAR since February 2008.

    Read more: all Governmental Members of EQAR

  • National external quality assurance requirements

    There are three main categories of higher education institutions in France: public universities, the Grandes Écoles (which include prestigious schools of engineering, business and management), and schools of art and architecture.The Grandes Écoles are either public, or private establishments that are typically smaller in size compared to universities.

    All legislative and regulatory provisions relating to the French educational system are incorporated in a single reference document, the education code (see below weblink to Code de l'éducation - in French).

    • Evaluations of higher education institutions
      are carried out every 5 years.

    • Review of disciplinary ‘fields’
      are carried out every 5 years.

    • Evaluation of sites using a ‘top-down approach’
      newly introduced in 2017.

    • Evaluation of doctoral schools
      are carried out every 5 years.

  • Cross-border quality assurance

    In France under certain conditions higher education institutions may choose a suitable EQAR-registered agency.

    • Eligibility requirements for foreign agencies: N/A

    • Conditions for the agencies’ work (e.g. criteria to be used): criteria and procedures for external quality assurance must be validated by the High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (HCERES).

    • Recognition of reviews carried out by foreign agencies: HCERES checks the external quality assurance activity, whether it corresponds to the national qualifications framework and whether the foreign quality assurance has effectively involved students in the review.

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

  • European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes

    In France the European Approach is available to higher education institutions under certain conditions.

    The European Approach could be used subject to the general conditions for recognising QA results of EQAR-registered agencies, as described above.

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

  • Further information

Registered agencies operating in France