According to the regulations for the professional and public accreditation, the official application is considered during 5 working days from the moment it is submitted and registered with the Agency. Based on the results of the analysis of the application, the Agency decided upon the possibility to carry out the accreditation and decide upon the cost of the work can be established. The Agency has the right to decide to decline the application, which the Organization is informed about with the explanations of the reasons for this decision.
The application for the professional and public accreditation may be rejected for the following reasons:
- the organization does not have a license to conduct educational activities;
- incorrect filling of the application form in accordance with the current regulations in the field of education, for example, the absence of the declared degree programs in the current List of areas of study;
- lack of information about the degree programmes submitted for the accreditation on the website of the educational institution;
- the impossibility of the Agency to carry out the declared procedures of high quality within the expected time frame due to the lack of necessary resources (for example, competent experts in a highly specialized degree programme in the shortest possible time);
- contradiction to the main principles of the Russian Register’s work as an independent expert organization.
The lack of state accreditation and graduation from the submitted degree programme is not a limitation for the accreditation but may affect its results due to the lack of evidence for a number of requirements of the professional and public accreditation, as a result, the accreditation period.
Terms and Conditions for the professional and public accreditation can be found here, the methods and criteria for evaluating the degree programme here.
Based on the analysis of the application, the educational institution is provided with a commercial offer, in case of a mutually positive decision, an agreement is concluded with the educational institution on conducting professional and public accreditation. The costs associated with the organization and conduct of professional and public accreditation are paid by the educational institution.
Professional and public accreditation is carried out in several stages:
- At the first stage the preliminary assessment of the first party. Self-assessment report is performed by the educational institution, and it is forwarded to the Agency via email. The experts analyze the SAR and supporting documents.
- Stage 2 is a cite-visit to the educational institution.
The general algorithm of actions is typical for generally accepted high-quality procedures for professional and public accreditation of degree programmes. It differs from the procedures carried out by other accrediting organizations by its high organization and regulation of procedures and a mandatory cite visit to an educational institution.
The period of work is always indicated in the Agreement as a work plan and, as a rule, it takes an average of 2-4 months from the signing the Agreement to the issuing the Certificate. The period depends primarily on the ability of the educational institution to provide its own procedure for self-examination of the degree programme as the most time-consuming stage. In practice, there are accreditations completed in 1 month and in a year. The Agency always adjusts its accreditation procedures to the goals of the educational institution.
The decision on the professional and public accreditation is made by the independent Accreditation Board. Based on the decision, the certificates are forwarded to the educational institution.
In fulfillment of the expectations of educational institution and in order to optimize resources, the Agency proposes to consider the possibility of conducting a professional and public accreditation procedure integrated with international accreditation of degree programmes, which can also be selected in the application form when applying for the accreditation.
