Support from Critical Friends

"Taking responsibility for quality development and supporting yourself as critical friends." With this in mind, the universities of Bamberg, Greifswald, Kaiserslautern, Kassel, Lueneburg, Osnabrueck, Potsdam and Saarland joined forces in 2011 to form the Quality Audit Network. In 2016, the Technical University of Ilmenau and the University of Siegen also joined the network as associated partners. In 2018, Cologne Sports University became the eleventh university to join the network. The four founding universities will receive funds from the Quality Pact for Teaching for their network activities until 2020. Almost all partners are system accredited or aim for system accreditation. With this joint project, they want to strengthen their ability to steer themselves as universities.


Collegial procedures

The network pursues the approach of using collegial and peer-supported procedures to promote quality development in studies and teaching, while making its own goals and criteria its benchmark. Together, the network partners developed a consulting, a bench learning and an audit procedure. These are carried out with all network partners and with the involvement of all status groups (university management, lecturers, administration, students, etc.) within the framework of workshops. The topics are oriented towards the concrete questions and problems of the universities that organise the workshops. With the help of the instruments developed, independent quality assurance and quality development at universities is to be promoted in the longer term beyond the funding period and the circle of universities involved in the project.

Impulses for QM at universities

Over the next few years, the methods are to be methodically further developed and combined and embedded in a stringent learning cycle with preparation, reflection and follow-up phases. The long-term goal is to prepare the formats in such a way that they can also be used by other universities outside the network.
Cooperation within the network has led to clear organisational learning effects at the participating universities. Through the exchange and comparison of practical examples, all universities have received important impulses and concrete ideas for solutions to their specific questions and problems in quality management.