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Report 2009:17 R

Högskoleverket's (the Swedish National Agency for Higher Education) appraisal of the entitlement to award Master's degrees

This report concludes the Agency´s third round of appraisals. Applications from five higher education institutions in a total of seven different areas have been examined. Five applications have been approved, but the remaining two applications failed to meet the quality requirements. This round of applications indicates that most of the applications were more fully developed than in the past. All the assessment aspects in the Agency´s Instructions for Appraisal of Entitlement to Award Master´s Degrees have been taken into account, and this has been facilitated by fair assessment on the part of the experts concerned.

The Programme Design aspect has been the most problematical for the higher education institutions concerned. They have difficulty in explaining how the programme is to guarantee that students achieve the target for a Master´s degree. This applies both to programme syllabuses and course plans describing the programme. The 2007 Qualifications Ordinance stipulates clear requirements for a definition of the targets that are to be achieved for a Master´s degree, in terms of the institution´s and potential students´ activities.

Clear programme descriptions are also a prerequisite for a fair assessment of applications by experts. In this context, the institution´s internal quality process must ensure the quality of both existing and planned programmes. In the case of the establishment of new programmes and qualifications, the Instructions must provide a basis for an internal assessment of the entitlement to award degrees, before the application is submitted to the Agency.

Generally speaking, at least two teachers with readership/associate professor competence in the main area must be permanently employed by the institution concerned, although this assessment must always be made in the light of the nature of the programme. Hence, in the case of transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programmes, a requirement of more than two teachers with readership/associate professor competence may be stipulated, since a broad approach calls for competence in all aspects of the programme. In other words, this involves an overall assessment of the teaching competence required.

In the course of site visits, several institutions have clearly indicated that they have decided to profile their activities in research and teaching terms, by concentrating on a number of areas in which they consider they are well qualified. The Agency notes, in this context, that an institution´s application for entitlement to award a Master´s degree tends to be regarded as a step on the road to entitlement to award qualifications at the third-cycle level, rather than an expression of interest in awarding Master´s degrees, per se.

Last updated: 2010-06-21
Contact: Karin Järplid Linde, Email: firstname.lastname@hsv.se
Swedish National Agency for Higher Education  Visting address: Luntmakargatan 13  Box 7851, 103 99 Stockholm
Phone: 08-563 085 00  Fax: 08-563 085 50  Email: hsv@hsv.se