elButlletí

35

Març 2008

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The evolutions of the legal framework for a better steering and strengthening of the assessment of higher education and research

The relations between the French State and the institutions of higher education and research have evolved perceptibly over the last two years. Two recent laws have formed the legislative translation of this evolution. The first, the research programme act of 18 April 2006, strengthens the national steering of research and creates new mechanisms to define the strategic priorities and to finance projects. The second, the act of 7 August 2007, relating to the freedoms and responsibilities of the universities, increases the margins of autonomy of the institutions and improves their capacities of direction and management. This last act reaffirms the central place of pluri-annual¹ contracts in the financing of the institutions and the strengthening of assessment.

Although AERES (established in March 2007) was created by the act of 18 April 2006, its action is the indissociable counterpart of the extended autonomy of the institutions.

Institutional assessment or assessment of the exercise of autonomy
Institutional assessment, as it is conceived by AERES, has the purpose of passing judgement on the capacity of an institution to govern itself and, consequently, to set objectives for itself, to endow itself with the means to achieve them and to measure their results. The aim is likewise to see how the institution organises its decisions within a complex system which is more or less decentralised (in faculties or in education and research units [UFR], departments, schools or internal institutes, etc.). The aim is above all to determine how the university uses its margins of autonomy to define and put in place its strategies in matters of governance, offer of programmes, research, evaluation of research, exterior and international relations, student life and management.

The added value of AERES in the assessment of the quality and coherence of the system is to integrate within one same agency the various fields of assessment, which were previously entrusted to various structures.² In effect, AERES assesses the institutions of higher education and the research bodies. It is also competent to assess the research activities and the programmes (licentiates, master’s degrees, Ph.D.s) and to validate the assessment procedures of personnel which are put in place in the institutions. This organisation shall allow the institutional assessment to be based on fine analyses of the offer of programmes and on research activities. It has only been possible to achieve this objective in part this year because it has been necessary to launch the assessment of the thirty universities of the contractual wave of 2008-2011 before that of the programmes and the research units. It should be achieved in 2009 when the phasing of the various assessments will have been harmonised and the assessment of the research units and the programmes will precede the assessment of the institution.

It should then be possible to provide society with a both comprehensive and precise picture of the quality of higher education and of research.

The programming of the assessments and their impact
The assessment rate - every four years -, and the choice of the assessed institutions are in line with the contractual policy of the State. In order to strengthen the impact of the recommendations, the results of the assessments made by AERES are made public before the start of the management dialogue between the institutions and the State. The agency assesses with complete independence; it does not accredit or make decisions (with respect to financing or to possible structural modifications of the universities, for example). These decisions are the prerogative of the institutions and of the Ministry of Higher Education, which have on hand the results of the assessments in order to orient their action.

Method
The assessment method is based on the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG). It unfolds in three phases:

• The self-assessment of the institution: for this transition year, the universities have been requested to present the balance of the quadrennial contract established with the State, supported by indicators of quantitative and qualitative results; in time, the presentation of a self-assessment document will be the prior condition for any external assessment.
• The external assessment on site by groups of experts (French and foreign nationals) including a student. At the time of the visit of the external assessors, the institution shall be in a position to demonstrate its capacity to identify its strategies, to situate them within their environment, and to project them into the future.
• Publicity of the results: the procedure is contradictory; the vice-chancellors of the assessed universities draft a response which is published at the end of the report.

The assessment reports are available in their entirety on the web site of the agency.

Work in progress
Aside from the assessment of universities, in 2008 AERES will assess two research bodies, the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) and the Research Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Engineering (CEMAGREF), according to an adapted methodology.

Original version in French


¹ Limited at first to the sphere of research, the notion of the contract within the sphere of higher education was extended in 1989 to all aspects of the life of the institution, while generalising it to the set of institutions of higher education. These institutions are distributed in four contractual waves. The contractual formality is the occasion for the institutions and the State to affirm strategic and operational choices. At the financial level, the allocations made under the title of institution contracts represent about one-third of the subsidies granted to the institutions of higher education.

² The National Council for Assessment (CNE), the National Committee for Assessment of Research (CNER), and the Scientific, Technical and Pedagogical Mission (MSTP) of the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research.