Accreditation is a designation indicating that an educational programme meets the requirements set by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Achieving accreditation is a precondition for the recognition of diplomas, for the funding of programmes and for grant applications.
An external committee reviews and evaluates the programmes and reports to the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO), the body that also grants accreditations.
A list of accredited programmes is available on the NVAO website: www.nvao.net
An important part of the accreditation process, quality assurance involves continuous monitoring of the performance of an organisation and its education. This is achieved by holding interviews and evaluations. If the outcomes of the assessments are negative, improvements are made.
All bachelor programmes of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague and the master programme in Type and Media were accredited in 2014. The bachelor programme in Autonomous Fine Arts (ArtScience and Fine Arts) was assessed as ‘good’, while the bachelor programme in Design (Graphic Design, Interactive/Media/Design, Interior Architecture and Furniture Design, Photography and Fashion and Textile) and the master programme in Type and Media were assessed as ‘excellent’.
The master programme in ArtScience was accredited in September 2013 as ‘excellent’. ‘Internationalisation’ was identified as a distinctive quality feature of the programmes (as a specialisation in the Master’s programme in Music). The master specialisations Artistic Research, Industrial Design and Non-Linear Narrative fall under the Master of Arts in Fine Arts and Design, accredited by the NVAO in 2017.
The master programme in Interior Architecture was accredited in 2015. The audit panel concluded that the programme was excellent; the NVAO confirmed that it met the required standards.
The findings of the audit panels for these accreditations can be found via the website of NVAO:
