International accreditation

The project is designed as a the long term process. The first step is the initial accreditation of International Management B.A. As in the national accreditation, re-accreditations are scheduled at regular intervals after the initial accreditation in order to be able to continue to use the quality seal.

The international accreditation is integrated in the Faculty’s working programme 2019 – 2023 to increase internationalization, which passed the Faculty Council in 2019, as one element for achieving the Faculty’s internationalization goals. The international accreditation has been prepared and coordinated by the Internationalization Project Office since summer semester 2020 and is now managed as a project by the International Faculty Office since October 2022:

• Summer semester 2020: Preparation of the project
• Winter semester 2020/21: Exploratory phase
• Summer semester 2021: Approval by the Faculty‘s committees, EFMD membership
• Winter semester 2021/22: Start of the formal process (datasheet)
• Summer semester 2022: Submission of first version of the datasheet
• Winter semester 2022/23: Revision of the datasheet
• January - May 2023: Pre-eligibility phase (advisor)
• 23.May 2023: Positive eligibility decision by EFMD
• June 2023 - winter semester 2024/25: Self-Assessment Phase: Compiling of self-assessment report (SAR)
• 2.-3. April 2025: Peer Review Visit (PRV)

The formal process of international program accreditation by the EFMD has several stages and is divided into six phases:

• Phase 1: Preparation of the EFMD datasheet and coordination with the EFMD
• Phase 2: Eligibility check by the EFMD on the basis of the datasheet
• Phase 3: Positive eligibility decision: writing of the self-assessment report based on the 5 EFMD standards and related criteria
• Phase 4: On-site visit by a Peer Review Team consisting of an international team of experts
• Phase 5: Accreditation decision by EFMD
• Phase 6: Re-accreditation after 3, resp. 5 years

The milestone planning for the project is therefore based on these phases:

Milestone planning – Overview over the EFMD phases

Current project status: Phase 3

In addition to the provision of university, Faculty and program-related data in the datasheet, the accreditation process includes an intensive self-evaluation (SAR phase, phase 3), which is conducted based on the EFMD-standards and criteria. In the course of this process, the International Management B.A. degree program checks compliance with the standards and criteria and implements them where necessary. On the one hand, continuous self-evaluation takes place in internal processes in the study program's steering committee. In addition, three working groups (WGs), consisting of various stakeholders, worked in the winter semester 2023/24 and summer semester 2024 on answering the EFMD criteria and compiling the texts for the self-evaluation report:

•     WG 1: Strategy, university and Faculty context
•     WG 2: Criteria specific to the degree program
•     WG 3: Quality management

In the summer semester 2024, students of the degree program created the third component for the Peer Review Visit (PRV), the student report, in addition to the datasheet and the self-evaluation report. Also based on EFMD criteria, ten IM students wrote the report completely independently, which meets the EFMD requirements.

Another aspect of a successful accreditation process is the participation in EFMD conferences and workshops by the project and Faculty management team:

• 2021: Participation in the EFMD annual conference (online)
• 2022: Webinars, e.g. on the EFMD cross-sectional topics
• 2023: Participation in the EFMD annual conference in Lyon, France; participation in the online workshop on EFMD program accreditation
• 2024: Participation in the EFMD annual conference in Bologna, Italy; participation in webinars, including on the peer review visit