{"id":292543,"date":"2025-05-06T09:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T09:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/about-us\/quality-and-assessment\/qualita-nel-sistema-universitario\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T19:06:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T18:06:22","slug":"quality-in-the-university-system","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.unipi.it\/en\/about-us\/quality-and-assessment\/quality-in-the-university-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Quality in the University System"},"content":{"rendered":"

In common usage, \u201cquality\u201d<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

Quality Assurance (QA)<\/strong>, 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<\/em>. QA actions foster a process of continuous improvement of the objectives and of the appropriate tools to achieve them.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Quality<\/p>\n

The principles of Quality Assurance are implemented at the national level through ANVUR’s System of Self-Evaluation, Periodic Evaluation, and Accreditation (AVA)<\/strong>, 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.<\/p>\n

Accreditation<\/strong>1<\/a><\/sup> 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.
\nAccreditation 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.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n