Newsletter No. 3/26 – July 2026

The Accreditation Council convened on June 25, 2026, for its 129th meeting, which was held virtually.

At this meeting, it approved two new FAQs: An FAQ with guidance on developing examination concepts in accordance with the revised version of Section 12(5)(4) of the MRVO (FAQ 21, see below) and an FAQ on study programmes with a special profile (FAQ 22, see below).

Furthermore, the Accreditation Council received

• 199 applications for programme accreditation, covering 528 study programmes, as well as
• Twelve applications for system accreditation

for a decision.

Furthermore, the Accreditation Council has accredited the Alternative Procedures at the Faculty of Business and Law at Pforzheim University. This resulted in two firsts: First, this is the first Alternative Procedure to apply exclusively to a single unit within a higher education institution. Second, it is the first set of accreditation procedures of its kind to have emerged from an experiment conducted under the experimental clause of the former system.

You can find more information here.

On November 5–6, 2026, the joint conference of the German Rectors’ Conference and the Accreditation Council, in collaboration with the Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education Teaching and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, will take place on the topic “Reorienting the Accreditation System in a Resilient Academic System: Strengthening Internationalization and a Culture of Quality.”

Further information can be found here.

• Change the title of FAQ 03 from “Publication of Accreditation Reports” to “Publication of Accreditation Information.”
• Changes to FAQs 3.1, 3.2, 3.4, and 3.5 regarding the publication of accreditation information.
• Revision of FAQ 19.04 regarding which study programmes and criteria are included in the random samples.
• New FAQ 21 on the topic of the examination concept.
• New FAQ 22 on study programmes with a special profile.