Experiences from CHARM-EU: the road to international accreditation
A study on the joint CHARM-EU master’s programme Global Challenges for Sustainability and its international accreditation process has been published in the latest issue of the Hungarian Accreditation Review.
The Master’s in Global Challenges for Sustainability offers a unique international learning experience: CHARM-EU students have the chance to address the pressing need for sustainability in a transdisciplinary and challenge-based environment. The international programme is jointly awarded by the five founding CHARM-EU partner universities and it was the first accredited Master’s degree programme under the criteria of the European Universities Initiative.
The Alliance started to design the master’s in the beginning of 2020 with the aim of implementing it in September 2021, a highly ambitious goal considering the length of accreditation procedures and the unprecedented nature of the programme. The process proved to be inherently complex as the solutions applied had to fit five different national and institutional regulatory frameworks. A key factor to the success of CHARM-EU was the close cooperation with quality agencies, ministries and ENQA from the very beginning. However, a significant number of legislative barriers have also been detected, and as CHARM-EU is working towards expanding its educational portfolio, the Alliance will further investigate areas of development and continue to cooperate with national agencies and authorities.
In a recently published study titled “Three Years of Challenge: The first experiences of the CHARM European University Alliance”, Dr. Ferenc Takó, Head of the Rector’s Cabinet CHARM-EU Office at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) introduced CHARM-EU and the international accreditation process of its joint degree programme. The article summarises the creation, the key features and the goals of the Alliance, presents its Master’s in Global Challenges for Sustainability, then reflects on the challenges of its complex accreditation procedure.
The article is available open access here.
Reference:
Takó, F. (2023). Three years of challenge. The first experiences of the CHARM European University Alliance/Három évnyi kihívás. A CHARM European University Szövetség kezdeti tapasztalatai [Bilingual publication]. Hungarian Accreditation Review/Magyar Akkreditációs Szemle.