About the review
Requirements for periodic reviews
Norwegian universities and university colleges are responsible for the quality assurance and quality enhancement of their educational portfolio. All institutions must thus have an adequate internal system for quality assurance.
NOKUT’s mandate is to conduct periodic reviews with institutional quality assurance practices, as stipulated in the regulatory framework for higher education. NOKUT’s reviews shall stimulate quality assurance and quality enhancement at the institutions. The reviews are conducted in accordance with the existing rules and regulations, which the institutions must comply with. A review should be conducted no later than eight years since the previous one.
Review objectives
The objectives of the periodic reviews at the institutions are:
- to ensure that the institutions’ quality assurance practices comply with existing rules and regulations
- to stimulate quality enhancement of the institutions’ educational portfolio through their quality assurance practices
- to provide the institutions with recommendations for the further development of their quality assurance practices
The regulatory framework for NOKUT’s periodic reviews
The regulatory framework for NOKUT’s periodic reviews is outlined in the following laws and regulations:
- Act relating to universities and university colleges
- Regulations concerning quality assurance and quality development in higher education and tertiary vocational education by the Ministry of Education and Research (in Norwegian only)
- Regulations concerning Supervision of the Educational Quality in Higher Education – Academic Supervision Regulations by NOKUT (pdf)
NOKUT’s tasks and activities regarding control and enhancement of higher education quality is stipulated in the Act relating to universities and university colleges, and further specified in the two above presented regulations. NOKUT’s work with external quality assurance is also based on the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the Higher Education Area (ESG 2015).