Quality in the University System

In common usage, “quality” refers to an inherently positive value; a quality product or service has desirable characteristics and promises to satisfy the user; it is appropriate for a purpose or useful for a given function. With reference to the University, quality denotes the ability to set meaningful objectives and to achieve them by adopting appropriate behaviours to measure and improve the correspondence between objectives and results.

Quality Assurance (QA), on the other hand, describes the set of planned and systematic actions designed to ensure confidence that the processes relating to teaching, research and the Third Mission are effective for the purposes established. QA actions foster a process of continuous improvement of the objectives and of the appropriate tools to achieve them.

Each university, acting autonomously and in accordance with its Statute, implements its own vision of the quality of teaching, research and the Third Mission through its QA organization. This ensures that planning, monitoring and self-evaluation processes are activated throughout all structures, allowing for the timely identification of problems, their appropriate analysis and the definition of possible solutions.

The principles of Quality Assurance are implemented at the national level through ANVUR’s System of Self-Evaluation, Periodic Evaluation, and Accreditation (AVA), which encompasses all activities aimed at defining the framework for the initial and periodic accreditation of Study Programmes and university sites, as well as the periodic evaluation of quality.

Accreditation¹ is the process through which an external body evaluates the quality of a university or a Study Programme in order to formally verify its ability to achieve specific levels of quality or to meet certain requirements or criteria.
Accreditation may consider both organizational and structural factors (such as the number of students, number of lecturers, classrooms, libraries, financial resources, etc.) and the definition of expected and actual results and their alignment with external demand for education and research.

The AVA system aims to improve the quality of teaching, research and the Third Mission/social impact through the application of a QA model based on:

• internal procedures for the design, management, self-evaluation and improvement of educational and scientific activities
• external verification carried out in a clear and transparent manner.

The external evaluation leads to an accreditation judgment, which recognizes a university (and its Study Programmes) as either possessing the quality requirements necessary to operate (initial accreditation²) or maintaining them (periodic accreditation³) in order to fulfil its institutional functions. The result of accreditation therefore constitutes an authorization to operate for a defined period of validity. In this regard, initial accreditation is particularly significant as it authorizes a university or a Study Programme to start its activities on the basis of compliance with the established requirements.

The operational model defined by ANVUR (Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research), for both initial and periodic accreditation, relies on an Evaluation Expert Commission (CEV) which is responsible for proposing a judgment based on a thorough examination of the project (in the case of initial accreditation) or of the overall performance (in the case of periodic accreditation) with reference to compliance with quality requirements.

The Periodic Accreditation process involves two phases:

• analysis of the documentation made available by the University and
• remote visits concerning Study Programmes and PhD Programmes.

Furthermore, an on-site visit by the CEV is planned to directly assess the degree of correspondence between the procedures developed by the University and the Quality Assurance requirements. The on-site visit also includes an in-depth examination of a sample of Departments in order to verify the effectiveness of the University’s QA system.

The AVA system has been developed to achieve three main objectives:

1. to ensure, through the assessment activities carried out by ANVUR on behalf of the MUR (Ministry of Universities and Research), that Italian universities consistently deliver educational services of adequate quality to their users (thus meeting the predetermined threshold level) and to society as a whole;
2. to promote the responsible and reliable exercise of university autonomy in the use of public resources and in collective and individual conduct relating to educational and research activities;
3. to foster the continuous improvement of the quality of educational and research activities.

Within the AVA system, ANVUR is responsible for establishing the criteria and verification methods as well as the indicators used for the initial and periodic accreditation of universities and Study Programmes. These indicators must be consistent with the standards and guidelines established by the European Association for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG 2015 – of ENQA [ENG]–[ITA]) and take into account the general guidelines of the three-year university planning framework (D.M. no. 773 of 10/06/2024).
ANVUR is also entrusted with monitoring and verifying the indicators themselves for the purposes of periodic accreditation.