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FAQ
- The European standards recommend that the institution’s different staff members and students should be involved in the self-evaluation process, including in the production of the self-evaluation report.
- They may participate in different ways (e.g. working parties, interviews, surveys, etc.), and these activities may concern the different aspects of the evaluation (governance, management, training and research activities). International practices often include the establishment of a steering committee consisting of representatives of the different categories of stakeholders in the institution to oversee the self-evaluation process.
Institutions are free to present the documents they submit to Hcéres for evaluation. Institutions are advised to present these documents to the central committees and disseminate them throughout the institution. This internal validation and dissemination process for the self-evaluation report must be described in the presentation of the methodology used for the self-evaluation (cf. document entitled “Key points for self-evaluation”).
- The declaration of strategic development priorities must be no more than 5 pages long.
- Institutions are not required to submit a detailed development project but only to state their major focuses in these fields of activity for the coming period.
The ex post evaluation process covers a reference period of four to five years, which can be defined as the period of time between the last two self-evaluations. Depending on the choices made by the institution concerning its self-evaluation, this period may also be limited to the time that has elapsed since the start of the last multi-annual contract with the supervising ministry.
- The self-evaluation report will have around sixty pages. It can be accompanied by annexes referenced in the report; however, the amount of documentation included in the annexes should remain moderate because an excessive amount of poorly organised information could hinder the evaluation panel’s activities.
- To facilitate the evaluation panel’s work, we strongly recommend the referencing of annexes in the body of the self-evaluation report and advise institutions to be highly selective in terms of the number of annexes they include and their content (cf. methodological document entitled “Key points for self-evaluation”).
- This information will be set out in a specific email sent by Hcéres. The visit by the panel of experts will take place in a single location – usually on the premises of the institution’s senior management team or its president. In this way (barring exceptional circumstances), visits will not be carried out offsite or on peripheral sites.
- The organisation of interviews requires the provision of premises of a suitable size.
- As workshops may be held at the same time, the panel of experts should be given access to several rooms situated nearby. Institutions are also requested to reserve a meeting room, equipped with at least one computer with Internet access (WiFi) and a telephone, exclusively for the panel of experts.
- Lastly, the experts must be given access to the Institution’s Intranet system 15 days before the visit and up to 15 days after it.
- Visits are gradually prepared with the support of a two-person team consisting of a member of the teaching and research staff acting as a scientific advisor, and a project manager. After the approval of the proposed visit time slot, a meeting between Hcéres and the institution’s senior management team is held prior to the visit in order to determine the institution’s expectations regarding the performance of the evaluation and transmit practical organisational information.
- The institution will be informed of the composition of the expert panel by email so that it can identify any potential conflicts of interest.
- The scheduling arrangements will be transmitted over this period, to allow sufficient time for meetings to be held with the interested parties, including external contacts (partners of the institution, representatives of local authorities, etc.), who may have limited time to spare. For information, around forty interviews are scheduled, on average, during the course of a university evaluation, in which over 100 people may be interviewed.
There is no single “best time”. It all depends on the institution, its experience with such procedures and whether there is an existing internal continuous improvement scheme in operation. However, these activities, which are traditionally organised into working parties and workshops, involving integration, intermediate diagnosis and consultation phases, generally require several months of work (4 to 6 months, on average).
This answer did not bring you any solution? Would you like to contact us? Click here to access the contact form and get in touch with one of our corresponding.The visit schedule is normally sent to institutions 9 to 12 months before the planned visit. For research bodies and territorial coordinations, this is an ad hoc schedule.
This answer did not bring you any solution? Would you like to contact us? Click here to access the contact form and get in touch with one of our corresponding.An initial version of the complete visit schedule will normally be transmitted by the project manager 2 to 3 weeks before the visit. However, it should be noted that the detailed scheduling arrangements are regularly discussed with the institution well in advance, starting with the meeting between Hcéres and the senior management team.