Who can apply to NOKUT for accreditation?

Universities, university colleges and vocational colleges have different degrees of authority to establish new study programmes.

Universities have self-accrediting rights for their study programmes, while NOKUT is responsible for the accreditation of study programmes with a specialized educational profile such as legal studies and psychology.

Specialised universities and accredited university colleges have self-accrediting rights at the bachelor level for all academic disciplines. For disciplines offering doctoral education, the institutions have self-accrediting rights on bachelor and master level. For disciplines without doctoral education, accredited university colleges and specialised universities must apply to NOKUT for the accreditation of new master and PhD programmes.

Accreditation rights are stipulated in the Act relating to universities and university colleges.

University colleges without accreditation must apply to NOKUT for the accreditation of every single study programme they plan to establish, which also concerns most of the vocational colleges. Some vocational colleges have received self-accrediting rights for certain academic disciplines by NOKUT, meaning that they can accredit study programmes on their own, within these disciplines.
Institutions with self-accrediting rights must comply with the requirements as stipulated in relevant acts and regulations by the Ministry of Education and Research and NOKUT.