Aim of the project

To increase awareness on the need to develop an internal quality culture within the Universities to:

• improve quality levels without stifling diversity and innovation.
• strengthen institutional autonomy.
• promote non-intrusive external quality assurance procedures, i.e. institutional audit.

Objectives

• To foster the development of internal quality in European higher education institutions through good practice reports related to the six network themes.
• To contribute to developing and improving institutional quality culture.

The project includes following phases

• Project beginning: partners meeting (January, 2005).
• Preparation of a short institutional presentation by each network institution (January-February, 2005).
• First meeting of project groups (March 2005). The aim of the meeting - to specify the network themes and agree on the work plan for the network.
• Preparation of SWOT analysis by each institution, assesing its strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, focused on the network theme (March-April 2005).
• Second network meeting (May 2005). The aim of the meeting - to discuss analysis on SWOT and to give suggestions how to deal with weaknesses and to share good practice.
• Development of an institutional action plan by each institution focused on implementing internal quality within the network theme. In parallel, each network will work on the draft network report (June-November 2005).
• Network meeting Three (December 2005) where validation of the network reports will be held, highlighting best practices as well as the successes and obbstacles encountered.
• Presentation on the final report network results, drawing lessons and conclusions for improvement of institutional quality culture.

Contracting organisation

Prof. Katsikas Socrates, University of Aegean, Greece

Partners’ organisations

Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania
Universite de Liege, Belgium
The University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Respublic
UCC, National University of Ireland Cork, Ireland
University of Camerino, Unicam, Italy
South East University, Macedonia
University College Winchester, United Kingdom

Contact person

Prof. habil. dr. Kęstutis Pukelis, Centre for Quality of Studies, Vytautas Magnus University