Quality assurance: Goals and strategies
Goals, strategies and guidelines provide the framework for Uppsala University’s quality assurance and enhancement processes, while the responsibility for different quality processes follows the University’s regular organisation and responsibilities.
In Uppsala University: Mission, Goals and Strategies and Operational Plan for Uppsala University 2022 (in Swedish), the University Board has adopted the basic principles of the quality system, university-wide goals and more long-term strategies for quality assurance and enhancement.
Uppsala University: Mission, Goals and Strategies
The document Mission, Goals and Strategies articulates the University’s overarching goals. It expresses the University’s fundamental values and the focus of the University’s continued development. It starts by stating that Uppsala University’s mission is to gain and disseminate knowledge for the benefit of humankind and for a better world. Uppsala University is to provide high-quality and relevant education and research, in which contacts with the wider community are integrated.
Mission, Goals and Strategies formulates strategic priorities and goals for quality assurance and enhancement as well as for internationalisation, infrastructure, talent attraction and professional development, career systems, support functions, and the wider university environment. The goals for quality assurance and enhancement are:
- Quality assurance and enhancement will safeguard and promote the quality of education and research. Quality assurance and enhancement will prevent, identify and remedy failings, support effective operations, and encourage improvements and innovative thinking. Quality assurance and enhancement will be systematic, include all teachers, researchers and students, and inform day-today activities.
- Quality assurance and enhancement will emanate from and strengthen the academic and collegial culture. Quality assurance and enhancement will be an integral part of the academic culture and will apply a scientific approach based on objectively supported analysis and peer review, along with dissemination of results and experience.
- Quality assurance and enhancement will be transparent, effective and efficient. Quality assurance and enhancement will be decentralised, tailored to local conditions in the University’s disciplinary domains and where necessary coordinated. Quality assurance and enhancement will be designed to maintain a good balance between resources used and benefit. The quality assurance and enhancement system, its components and the division of responsibilities will be known to teachers, researchers and students, and to external stakeholders.
There are also corresponding documents and supplemental guidelines in the disciplinary domains of Science and Technology, Medicine and Pharmacy, and Humanities and Social Sciences and at faculty level.
Guidelines for quality assurance and enhancement
Guidelines (and other documents) relevant to quality processes are found under each component in the figure illustrating Uppsala University’s quality system. For example:
Teaching and Learning at Uppsala University
The document Teaching and Learning at Uppsala University contains visions for the University’s education. The document sets out four overarching themes for good teaching and learning: conditions for student learning; development of educational programmes; professional development in academic teaching and learning and subject didactics; and the value of the teaching experience (called “The legitimacy of teaching in terms of career building” in the linked document).
Magna Charta Universitatum
Uppsala University has signed the Magna Charta Universitatum. The Magna Charta Universitatum is the declaration of rights for European universities that was developed in 1988 in connection with the celebration of the University of Bologna’s 900th anniversary.