2005:38 R

The Evaluation Activities of the National Agency for Higher Education in Sweden. Final report by the International Advisory Board

In this, the final Report of the Advisory Board, we will look briefly back-wards at the Agency´s first Cycle of reviews of every subject and program in Sweden´s universities and colleges. We will also look forward, to the Agency´s next program of work that follows on from the successful completion of its first program of evaluation and assessment. During these past five years the Board has met with the Director of the Agency and her senior associates once every year for an intensive three-day meeting. In preparation for these meetings we have been provided with copies in translation of the most important documents produced by the Agency, and with samples of the various reports and commu-nications with the institutions that re.ected the on-going relationships of the Agency with the units that it was reviewing, assessing and accrediting. In addition, we were in frequent communication with the Agency senior sta. as well as with its Director by email and telephone, as well as with one another. Thus we could express our views to the Agency, its problems and achievements, in a variety of ways, in addition to our annual reports to the Agency.

The Agency has broad responsibility to assess, support and ensure the quality of work in Sweden´s colleges and universities, to make known to the Swedish government, current and future students, and the broader society the nature and quality of work in those institutions, and to accredit the degrees and other quali?cations awarded by institutions and programs.

The Agency continues to have responsibility for all these functions. But in the next Cycle it is dealing with a different world than it faced when it developed its procedures at the start of the ?rst Cycle in 2001.