Accreditation by EAPAA is based on a decision by the EAPAA Accreditation Committee that a programme “meets the criteria for accreditation sufficiently”. Under the tab Accreditation > Criteria more information can be found. The information on the procedures can be found under the tab Accreditation > Procedures.

For all accredited programmes see under the tab Accreditation > Accredited Programmes.

General information on EAPAA Accreditation

First of all, EAPAA accredits programmes, not institutions. Different programmes must be accredited separately, although this can be realised in one accreditation process. Different programmes are programmes leading to a different formal degree, or programmes for different populations of students resulting in a different curriculum (like executive master programmes).

Second, EAPAA accredits only academic degree programmes. In the terminology of the Bologna process those academic degree programmes are the bachelor and master degree programmes. EAPAA distinguishes between normal (fulltime) master programmes and post-experience or executive master programmes. Furthermore EAPAA sees comprehensive programmes as an distinctive category. Under the tab Accreditation > Categories more information can be found. For the moment EAPAA doesn’t accredits doctoral degree programmes.

Third, EAPAA accredits only public administration programmes. However, public administration is used here as a generic term and includes all programmes with name like public administration, public management, public policy, and so on.

Last, but not least, an important characteristic of the EAPAA accreditation decision is that the evaluation of the programme is ‘mission-based’. This implies that the programme’s content, didactics, performance and quality system are judged against the mission the programme says it has.

Although EAPAA has formulated its criteria for the accreditation decision, it acknowledges the diversity of institutional environments in Europe. Therefore, EAPAA take into account the national requirements with respect to (public administration) degree programmes, like entrance requirements, specific curriculum requirements, etc.

Furthermore, it is possible to integrate EAPAA accreditation into a national accreditation process. Purpose of such an integration is to decrease the ‘administrative burden’ of accreditation.

This integration can be realised in different ways:

• The Self-evaluation Report produced for a national accreditation is used as the basis for a separate EAPAA site visit. Condition is that the Self-evaluation Report offers all information necessary for the evaluation of all EAPAA criteria.
• The Self-evaluation Report produced for a national accreditation is used as the basis for a joint national-EAPAA site visit. Condition is that the Self-evaluation Report offers all information necessary for the evaluation of all EAPAA criteria, the joint site visit team complies to EAPAA criteria, and the evaluation report of the joint site visit team is sufficient for a judgement by the EAPAA Accreditation Committee.
• The Self-evaluation Report and the evaluation report of an international site visit team produced for a national accreditation are used as the basis for evaluation and judgement by the EAPAA Accreditation Committee.  Condition is that the Self-evaluation Report offers all information necessary for the evaluation of all EAPAA criteria, the international site visit team complies to EAPAA criteria, and the evaluation report of the site visit team is sufficient for a judgement by the EAPAA Accreditation Committee.