Accreditation Procedure

The procedures are based on the self-reports of the applying Faculties or higher education institution. During the on-site visit by a group of experts, the topics set out in the self-evaluation reports are discussed with the university management, the heads of degree programs and teaching staff as well as the students, and an expert report is drawn up at the end of the assessment. This report is submitted to the Accreditation Council together with the documents of the self-evaluation report for the final decision on accreditation.

• The Accreditation Council provides up-to-date information on the German accreditation system, decisions and accreditation periods
• A detailed description of the procedure and useful documents can be found here.

Accreditations are currently possible in the following procedural forms

• Program accreditation - assessment of a single study programme
• Cluster accreditation - joint assessment of subject-related degree programs
• System accreditation - accreditation of the entire quality assurance system for studying and teaching at a university with individual program samples. The University of Kassel itself is not system-accredited.

The following decisions can be made at the end of an accreditation procedure:

1. The accreditation of a study program must be granted if the quality requirements are met.
2. Accreditation should be granted subject to conditions if there are deficiencies that are likely to be remedied within nine months.
3. Accreditation should be denied if there are deficiencies that are unlikely to be remedied within nine months.
4. In the cases referred to in paragraphs 2 and 3, the agency may suspend the accreditation procedure once for a maximum period of 18 months following a statement by the higher education institution if it is to be expected that the higher education institution will remedy the deficiencies within this period."