The Quality Management Project

Objectives, Services, Development of the Project

The project has the following objectives:

1. To accumulate and exchange experiences in quality assurance on a national and international level,
2. To encourage university managements as well as individual university faculties to work on quality assurance,
3. To ensure and develop common standards of quality assurance procedures,
4. To report to the public and to policy-makers on the results of quality assurance and quality improvement measures.
In the course of its work, the Quality Management Project has created and provided the following services:
1. Conferences and workshops on the subject of quality assurance,
2. Publication of conferences and surveys,
3. Support and consulting for higher education institutions in the process of preparing and introducing quality assurance procedures,
4. An information pool (German language) on the status of quality assurance in Germany and an electronic newsletter.

Development of the Project

The Quality Management Project started off as the Quality Assurance Project in January 1998 at the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK). Up to the end of 2000, it was financed with special funds from the Bund-Laender Commission for Educational Planning and Research Promotion (BLK). In the first phase of the Project, its task was to promote an "exchange of experience among the Laender on measures to improve the quality of teaching." The main task was thus the creation of a communication platform for the participants in quality assurance procedures and the promotion of the issue within the universities. The Project initially focused on the two-step evaluation procedures in teaching. The conference on "Quality Development as a Task for the Future - 3 Years of Project Q," marked the end of the first phase. Since its beginning, the Quality Assurance Project itself has never evaluated nor accredited study programmes.

Since the beginning of the second phase of the project (in January 2001), funding has been provided by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). In its second phase, entitled "Quality Assurance in Higher Education", the Project has clearly embarked on expanding its concept. In addition to continuing with and increasing the emphasis placed on the original subjects, - evaluation, implementation of evaluation results, accreditation, the relationship between evaluation and accreditation - the Project has devoted itself to linking quality assurance with other fields, such as for instance university marketing, quality assurance in further education and in the context of the Bologna Process. Through the Bologna Process, the internationalisation of quality assurance with regard to standards and methods became a key issue in the discussion. These tendencies were the focus of the conference "Quality Assurance in Higher Education - New Challenges after the Berlin Conference" in November 2003.

From 2004 to 2006 the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has approved the Quality Assurance Project for a further three-year period. Main focus of this phase was to promote discussion about the continuing development of the individual quality assurance procedures towards an integrated concept of quality development as a central theme of higher education development. This topic results from the experience of the first two project periods and the challenges that have been identified, i.e. to continually enhance quality assurance systems and procedures in higher education institutions and to exceed the area of teaching, in order to have an efficient and sustainable impact on the quality of study and teaching.

Since 2007 the Quality Management Project has resumed its work. The basis for the Quality Management Project is provided through the results of the Quality Assurance Project, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) from 2004 to 2006.
A nationwide, multi-universal appraisal of internal Quality Assurance Systems provides the basis for a scientific research project which is going to identify the process of implementation of Quality Assurance at Universities.
Furthermore the impact of Quality Assurance instruments will be analysed and success factors and strategies will be identified.
The appraisal and the scientific analysis of the case studies are the basis for the second part of the project. The project’s aim is to support the exchange of information and experience in the field of Quality Assurance in Higher Education. The results of the case studies are continuously fed into this exchange. The transfer of the results into the universities intend to strengthen the performance and the self-reliance of the Higher Education Area in the range of Quality Assurance.
The scientific analysis is expected to offer incentives for further arrangements of Quality Assurance Systems in Higher Education.
It will be a task for the future, and also the Project’s task, to develop a far-reaching culture of quality assurance and to support higher education institutions in fulfilling the task of recognising quality development as a core principle and the basis of all relevant decisions of the higher education management.

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