Accreditation and quality assurance for professional degree programmes: comparing approaches in three European countries

Abstract

Over the last two decades, considerable progress has been made in establishing and implementing robust, comparable quality assurance processes throughout much of the European higher education sector. However, concerns persist over degree portability and recognition as current systems are rooted in national contexts. In particular, specialised accreditation for professional degrees is ill-understood cross-nationally. This study explores approaches and practices in quality assurance and accreditation for professional degrees using the example of urban, regional and spatial planning. Schemes in the UK, Poland and Germany reveal considerable variation in stakeholder influence and involvement of the profession in accreditation. Closer alignment of curricula with professional standards seems to increase practice-relevance and recognition nationally but not necessarily degree portability within Europe. International or pan-European professional accreditation would therefore be desirable but remains so far elusive.

Keywords:

• quality assurance
• national approaches
• professional accreditation
• higher education
• planning education

Acknowledgements

An early version of this paper was presented at the 2010 Association of European Planning Schools Congress. The authors thank colleagues and reviewers for their suggestions and comments.