CONIES-ICHE Board of Accreditation
is a programmatic accrediting body auditing the quality and integrity of postgraduate degree programmes (Master, Doctor).
CONIES, the Council on International Higher Education Supervision, established in 2012 by a group of recognized universities from different continents in order to streamline and coordinate and standardize their quality assurance systems and curriculum standards in the trans-national, inter-university collaborative provision of postgraduate online degree courses.
In 2015 CONIES established a non-profit organization in Austria in order to develop CONIES standards for programmatic accreditation based on a peer evaluation system and to open the scope of membership to quality assurance bodies. Our quality assurance members comprise of certification bodies and certified auditors. The scope of conformity assessment activities covers the ISO standards ISO 21001:2018 (Educational organizations — Management systems for educational organizations — Requirements with guidance for use) and the ISO 29993:2017 (Learning services outside formal education — Service requirements).
Accreditation by CONIES-ICHE is based on an independent evaluation of an institution’s postgraduate programmes by a group of peer-auditors, professional faculty and academic administrators in the field of postgraduate education.
In order to pursue CONIES-ICHE accreditation, the awarding institution is one of the following
- a nationally recognised IAU listed university;
- a nationally recognised and accredited institution of postsecondary education;
- a state approved or licensed institution of postsecondary education with degree awarding powers;
- an institution of postsecondary education with institutional accreditation by an accrediting agency recognised or listed by any government authority or board in charge of recognising accrediting agencies, or listed and recognised by CHEA, ENQA or INQAAHE.