Quality assurance (QA) of all university activities is an essential part of the university’s work. The university is about to introduce QA procedures for its administrative processes in addition to the safeguards inherent in the sector’s well-developed auditing and inspection systems.

Traditionally, the university has always carried out quality assurance of its academic activities. The university thus evaluates research activities ranging from the employment of academic staff members and the assessment of academic dissertations to publication strategies and the choice of attractive channels of publication, as well as peer reviews of submitted publications. In addition, the university’s success rate in securing funds from national and international trusts, programmes and councils in competition with other institutions is a good external indication of the quality of the basic research activities.

In the field of education, the active use of the competences of receiver panels, external examiners and advisory groups ensures external quality assurance of the entire portfolio of degree programmes. In addition, local evaluations of the teaching take place in the university’s boards of studies. The university also takes part in a number of interdisciplinary QA processes at the levels of the individual faculty, school, department or institute. Accreditations will be the future framework for teaching and research in Denmark. In selected areas, the university takes part in benchmarking collaboration with a number of renowned Northern European universities with a large research component.

The aims and objectives are:

• to make quality assurance an essential part of the management task
• to ensure that the university’s services and activities fully comply with existing agreements and established quality requirements
• to develop effective internal quality assurance systems
• to ensure that the university obtains the best and most recognised external quality assessments and accreditations for all units/main academic areas.

The University of Aarhus has decided:

• to include quality assurance in all activities and system development processes
• to document quality standards and QA systems and to ensure visibility of the quality criteria
• to develop a QA system within the research-based advice to the authorities
• to evaluate the research-based advice to the authorities in accordance with accepted standards
• to benchmark the university’s core activities with a group of strong international universities.