General principles:
- IEP will secure the agreement of the institution (or in case of coordinated evaluations, their collective representative) to the Terms of Reference before accepting the contract.
- IEP will agree only to adjustments that are:
- In the long-term strategic goals of higher education institutions and in accordance with EUA’s philosophy as a membership association
- In the long-term strategic goals and philosophy of the IEP
- In the long-term interest of the individual institution involved
In terms of teams:
- The funding agency will not select the experts. IEP will adjust the team composition to fit the particular characteristics of the exercise. Specifically, only one expert with a different profile would be integrated in any given team.
- The strength of the programme (peers to peers) should be preserved. In all cases, university leaders will be selected, unless IEP is asked to evaluate a non-university institution for which one non-university leader would be selected.
- The IEP offers an annual seminar to the pool in order to ensure appropriate levels of skills and knowledge of recent higher education trends.
- The IEP will appoint a lead chair to represent the Programme and coordinate the system-wide evaluation projects. All team members, including the team chairs will work cooperatively with the lead chair.
In terms of the Evaluation Guidelines:
- The strength of IEP’s approach and its unique characteristics is that it evaluates the quality of an institution and its strategic capacity for change. This approach must be preserved.
- The philosophy of the evaluation (fitness for purpose and improvement-orientated approach) must be preserved. In point of fact, the IEP evaluations do not examine conformity to norms but the capacity for change.