In addition to the regular institutional evaluations that are done at the request of individual institutions, the IEP has conducted several national or regional evaluations at the joint request of institutions and public authorities. Thus, all universities in Ireland, Catalonia, Slovakia, Serbia and Bosnia Herzegovina were evaluated, as well as a sample of 30 institutions in Portugal (in 3 rounds). The evaluations in Portugal have included public and private universities and polytechnics.
At the moment the Programme is engaged in the coordinated evaluation of universities in Romania. It is an evaluation contracted by the Romanian government in November 2011, comprising all accredited Romanian universities - 90 institutions in total. In this respect, 4 rounds of IEP evaluations will be carried out over a period of 3 years, until September 2014. Both public and private universities will undergo this evaluation, with a profile ranging from polytechnics and multidisciplinary social sciences to highly specialised military, arts, architecture, medical and veterinarian universities. A system evaluation report with policy review recommendations is due to be published in November 2014 and will be available for download on the IEP website.
In all cases, each institution receives its own evaluation report and, whenever it is appropriate, the IEP produces, in addition, a sector report that highlights shared issues and challenges and facilitates a fruitful dialogue among all key actors and stakeholders, including governments.
The rising demand for this type of national or regional requests is a response to the growing awareness of the imperatives – but also the benefits – of a systematic approach to quality assurance in the context of the internationally competitive race for knowledge, investments and human capital. The IEP methodology is particularly suited to increase the potential of higher education institutions to meet these new requirements.